Ana Mandić

Codes of Practice in Structural Engineering: Introduction

Structural codes of practice influence the professional activities of all structural engineers. While relatively few will be involved with their creation, adaptation and updating, the great majority will utilise their contents— some imaginatively and as an aid, some in a prescribed and unthinking fashion, a few in a defensive and negative way. Attitudes among users vary across supportive, puzzled, irritated, grateful, and so on. To the same individual they may well, at different times, be helpful, informative, restrictive or troublesome. Much has been written to explain the technical basis and development of new codes as part of the support for their introduction; some authors have made suggestions for improved formats, new styles of presentation, different approaches in terms of breadth and depth of coverage. The legal status of codes varies in different parts of the world, being enshrined in law in some countries yet merely advisory and optional in others. The perception of their legal standing is even more wideranging (and often misunderstood), with structural engineers often believing codes to be more influential than is actually the case. And, of course, their quality varies from lucid, polished and highly relevant and valuable documents to unclear, ambiguous and misleading offerings.

Two New Bridges across Sava River in Zagreb

The sustainable development of the Sava River banks area in Zagreb, as the most dominant natural and urban city motif, is planned to make the capital of Croatia a better place to live in. The improvement of this area, so far used only as a protection from floods, would be achieved by the complete river integration into the city and sufficient transport links between the city parts. Solving the problem of the inadequate capacity of the Sava River crossing in Zagreb, the public competitions have been organized for the preliminary bridge designs for the two new bridges located near the lakes, Jarun and Bundek. In this paper the two winning solutions are shown. When they will be built, the Jarun Bridge, asymmetrical cable-stayed bridge with one inclined pylon, and the Bundek Bridge, a continuous steel girder bridge comprising intersected arches forming frames, would be modern representatives of the worldwide-known Zagreb school of bridge engineering.