Students study roof structure forces

During a recent meeting held at the Max-Born Berufskolleg institute in Recklinghausen, Germany, the learning groups of teachers and students from Malta, Germany, Spain and Ireland involved in the EU-funded 'Roofs of Europe' Comenius and Life Long Learning programmes project, presented their respective learning outcomes which focused on structural forces of tension, compression, shear and bending, with particular focus on roof structures.

Prior to the meeting, the partners had identified these as forces that might be present in roof structures and each partner focused on a different structural force in national groups; The Irish partner, Garmscoil, focused on tension, the Spanish partner, IES Geneto, focused on compression, Max-Born Berufskolleg focused on shear, while the MCAST institute focused on bending.

With the help of a video in DVD format, the learning group from the MCAST Institute of Building and Construction Engineering, Naxxar, explained the force of bending, the effect of deflection on structural steel, structural calculations on amount of deflection based on the general theory of bending and possible methods of failure.

At the meeting, the MCAST learning group was represented by five students - Nicky Zammit Tabona, George Xerri, Bradley Vella, Karl Vella and Ryan Bilocca - accompanied by two of their teachers - architectural drawing lecturer Reginald Galea, and Martin Borg, applied sciences lecturer at the institute.