Modern city skylines such as those in Shanghai, Singapore and Hong Kong have changed very visibly in the last 20 years. The constraints of limited land have forced us to build upwards. Planners and architects have faced the problem of continuing this type of development without creating a concrete jungle. As a result of this, there has been a dramatic resurgence in the use of steel as the structural frame material in multi-storey construction in these cities. To ensure a successful implementation of a steel construction project, a good balance must be sought to improve buildability, quality, and labour productivity and to reduce construction time, material usage and wastage. The legislation of buildable design in Singapore, which encourages the use of prefabrication and precast components, coupling with the use of advanced technology, has accelerated the adoption of a number of innovations which lead to an overall improves of productivity in steel construction. New construction technologies are also emerging together with new products, such as high strength steel, composite steel, weather resistant and fire resistant steel which are suitable for used in the tropical and urban environment. The move to larger spans to accommodate column free space and the intensive service requirements of the building tenant has brought in new design challenges.
Steel and tubular structure is increasingly being employed to produce innovative and spectacular architectural designs with complex geometrical profiles. This is made possible with the advancement in design expertise, metallurgy research, fabrication technology and erection technique, and more importantly, the close cooperation and commitment of architects, engineers, suppliers, fabricators and erectors, sharing knowledge and working as a team to ensure successful transformation of an innovative design to a successful completed project of architectural and structural marvel.
The 5th International Conference on Advances in Steel Structures 2007 (ICASS'07) and the special international symposium on tubular structures are jointly organized by the National University of Singapore, the Singapore Structural Steel Society and the Building and Construction Authority of Singapore with supports from the Institute of Structural Engineers, UK and the Institute of Engineers Singapore. The conference was started by Professor S. L. Chan with an aim to provide a forum to discuss the recent progress and advances steel and composite structures.
This three-volume book constitutes the proceedings of reviewed papers presented in the International conference on Advances in Steel Structures' held from 5 to 7 December 2007 in Singapore. All the invited keynote papers for ICASS'07 are included in volume 1. The invited papers for the special symposium on tubular structures chaired by Professor Y. S. Choo are orgainsed in volume 2 of the proceedings. Volume 3 contains 124 technical papers selected for oral presentation in the conference. The 3-volume book aims to register the latest achievements on innovation and advances in steel and composite construction from various parts of the world, and the supports offered by all the contributors in making this book possible are gratefully acknowledged.
We would like to expressed our gratitude to all the international well-known keynote speakers and invited lecturers for their excellent contributions which will definitely generate great interests in technology related to steel and composite structures. It is a real pleasure to be able to edit this 3-volume book which contains high quality papers that are carefully prepared by the authors. We are also grateful to the organizing and international scientific committees for their advices and constant support and encouragement which are essential for the success of the conference.
Finally, we are gratefully acknowledging the assistance given by our staff including graduate students and post-doc fellows for being so patient and hard working to see through the entire period of the conference.
J. Y. Richard Liew & Y. S. Choo
December 2007