COMPLIANCE WITH REQUIREMENT A3 OF THE BUILDING REGULATIONS-PARTA (STRUCTURE)

摘要

The latest Building Regulations and the 2004 Edition of the Approved Document Part A (AD-A) include revised Requirement A3, which was introduced to remove anomalies in the Limitation of its predecessor, i.e. it would apply only to buildings with five or more storeys. The roots of this change are found in the meeting held at the Institution of Civil Engineers in London in March 1996, involving leading representatives of the building industry. Speaker after speaker drew attention to the reduction in robustness of smaller buildings - mainly resulting from a lack of supervision, economic pressures and inadequate detailing. Similar views were expressed by SCOSS, the Standing Committee on Structural Safety, an organisation jointly sponsored by the Institutions of Civil and Structural Engineers. These circumstances prompted the Building Regulations Division to take steps and consider the application of robustness requirements to all buildings to various degrees, depending on their height, location, occupancy and types of construction (framed or load-bearing) etc. Detailed studies were sponsored and they led to the new Requirement A3 and the guidance, which would accord with the CIRIA Report [1] and the background documents of the part of the Eurocode EC 1 - 'Accidental actions due to impact and explosions'. The reports of the studies have been placed on the Department of Communities and LocaL Government (DCLG, formerly ODPM) website www.communities.gov.uk/ (Building Regulations Approved Documents and Associated Guidance, Structure - Part A). This paper examines the effectiveness of the changes and some questions regarding compliance with the Requirement.