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DiscussionThe Chairman (Sir Herbert Manzoni) said that the Paper described a piece of pioneering work. It was probable that less was known about the many factors that governed the strength of pipelines than about the majority of civil engineering projects, for very little research work had been done on the subject. The Authors, however, had extended the work that had been done at Iowa. Pipelines were designed by what might be described as Roman methods, involving crude strength and bulk rather than by scientific analysis; there had always been, and still weie, so many difficulties and imponderables, such as the adequate packing and shaping of concrete round the pipes in the bottom of a narrow trench, or the determination of the characteristics of the backfilled earth. For these reasons, it was likely that the present methods would continue until much more basic information was made available.70. On two previous occasions Sir Herbert had taken the Chair when Papers on this subject were presented, and on each occasion criticism had been made of the suggestions arising from careful investigation. Because of the practical difficulties, certain assumptions and seemingly uneconomic methods might have to be continued on the basis of experience, but it was much better if experience were added to a known basis of actual research and ascertained facts.71. If nothing else were to result from the Authors' research, at least their insistence on the necessity for a new type of joint was most valuable. There was more trouble with the old-fashioned joints than with almost anything else, and the introduction of an agreed type of flexible joint would be a monument to their work. 72. Mr Clarke had spent, the Chairman believed, about 30 years on practical work and he was, therefore, able to bring to his research a knowledge of most of the practical difficulties, and the results of the Authors' work might well be that pipelines in the future could be laid more economically and with less risk of damage.

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