Useful Links

The following links redirect to a series of useful websites, a brief description of the content and use of each link is also presented.

RoyMech.co.uk

RoyMech contains a wide range of mechanical and structural engineering resources, from material grades, standards and element sizes, through to calculations guidance.
Link to http://www.roymech.co.uk/

BridgeDesign.org.uk, formally ChildsCEng

BridgeDesign.org.uk was formally known as ChildsCEng and is written by Chartered Civil Engineer David Childs. As the website suggests the site focuses on aspects of Bridge Design and Assessment The website contains a series of useful guides, tutorials, workshops and even calculation spreadsheets.
Link to http://www.bridgedesign.org.uk/

Bill Harvey - Obvis/Archie-M

Bill Harvey is a UK expert in the field of Arch Bridges and has his own consulting practise, Obvis. He is the creator of Archie-M one of the industry standard arch analysis packages and will often act as a specialist consultant on arch bridge projects. Bill also publishes a "Bridge of the Month" each month, discussing structures he has encountered, their history and any interesting structural features. To receive "Bridge of the Month" just sign-up on the Obvis website, it's well worth it.
Link to http://www.obvis.com/

Steel Construction Information

In it's own words, steelcontruction.info is "The free encyclopedia for UK steel construction information". The site is set up similar to wikipedia and contains a large range of useful information and references relating to UK steel construction practise.
Link to https://www.steelconstruction.info/

BlueBook Online

The BlueBook is the colloquial name for the book containing UK Steel Section Information. This was previously accessible online, via the Tata Steel website, but was removed. To fill the gap SteelConstruction.info, created the "Interactive Blue Book". This contains information on all UK standard steel sections, including: section sizes, section properties as well as buckling and warping coefficients.
Link to https://www.steelforlifebluebook.co.uk/

Concrete Centre

The Concrete Centre provides design information to the construction industry on behalf of the concrete, cement and aggregate industry in the UK. In it's own words: "The Concrete Centre provides material, design and construction guidance. Our aim is to enable all those involved in the design, use and performance of concrete to realise the potential of the material. The Concrete Centre provides published guidance, seminars, courses, online resources and industry research to the design community."
Link to https://www.concretecentre.com/

Designing Building Wiki

Designing Building Wiki was set up by a number of construction industry bodies, including the ICE (Institute of Civil Engineers) and BRE (Building Research Establishment) to share knowledge relating to building construction in the UK. As the name suggest, the site is similar to Wikipedia and contains over 7500 articles to date. The site covers a wide range of subject matter, from technical issues, through to legislation, contractual issues and commericial management.
Link to https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/

Engineering Timelines

Engineering Timelines aims to celebrate the Industrial and Engineering heritage of the UK and other areas of the world. The website contains a database of Engineering projects across the UK. Users can search by: how, where, why and who, the website will then open any records it has. This is a great website for getting to know the Engineering and Industrial history of an area, person or technique.
Link to http://engineering-timelines.com/

Design Manual for Roads and Bridges - UK Highway Deign Standards

The Design Manual for Roads and Bridges - DMRB for short - is a collection of the current codes and standards governing highway and bridge design in the UK. The DMRB standards are published by Highways England and the relevant Departments for Transportation of each UK region. Unlike most other design codes, the DMRB standards are made freely available to anyone. This is one of the many reasons that the DMRB standards are adopted by local authorities and private clients as well as by Highways England. As the DMRB standards are freely available, reviewing some of the documents may give Engineering students or other interested members of the public an appreciation of how Engineering design and management is undertaken within industry.
Link to http://www.standardsforhighways.co.uk/ha/standards/dmrb/

LiDAR Data UK

LiDAR is a method of aerial mapping that produces 3D surfaces of terrain and permanent features. As part of the OpenGovernment License system, the Environment Agency and DEFRA make LiDAR data freely available for download. Current mapping accuracy is between 0.25m and 2.0m depending on location. Two main options are available for LiDAR surfaces, DSM and DTM. A DSM is a Digital Surface Model and is almost the "raw" data, this contains permanent features such as buildings and cars within the 3D surface in addition to the underlying terrain. A DTM is a Digital Terrain Model and has been post-processed to remove unwanted permanent features to just give the unlying terrain features. LiDAR data can be downloaded from the DEFRA website below, this presented the user with a map of the UK, the user must then draw an outline of the area of interest, prior to the data available to download being shown.
Link to https://environment.data.gov.uk/DefraDataDownload/

Historic Maps - OldMaps.com and the National Library of Scotland

Oldmaps.com and the National Library of Scotland Maps catalogue are two really useful resources that show the history of an area over the past few hundred years. This is useful for both understanding the industrial heritage of an area and also for establishing possible ground conditions or contamination. The National Library of Scotland now also has a great side by side feature, showing the archive map next to it's modern counterpart, the cursor is even duplicated on both screen so the user can track features.
Link to https://www.old-maps.co.uk/
Link to https://maps.nls.uk/

BGS - Geological and Superficial Deposit Maps

The British Geological Survey (BGS) have a very useful set of mapping tools available free of charge on their website. The basic map (top link), shows both underlying geology and superficial deposits for any area of the UK, they are even developing a 3D version of the map. For users wanting more information, BGS have also produced the Index Map, in addition to geological and superficial deposit information, the map can also show a wide range of data, including borehole and site investigation locations.
Link to http://mapapps.bgs.ac.uk/geologyofbritain/home.html?
Link to http://mapapps2.bgs.ac.uk/geoindex/home.html

Code Academy

Code Academy is a great way to learn to a new programming language. Structured courses are available, with a variety of teach methods, including learning a new skill a day, backed up by quizes to practise the skills learned. If you are interested in learning to programme but aren't sure where to begin then Code Academy is a great starting point.
Link to https://www.codecademy.com/

Stack overflow

Stack-overflow is one of my most used websites and has provided information that led to solutions for countless coding issues. Stack-overflow is a community forum for software developers and programmers, usually taking the form of a user posting an issue, problem or question and the community posting answers. Answers are then voted on by the rest of the community, with the best answer being listed directly below the initial question. If you have an issue while writing code there is a strong chance someone else has already had the same or similar issue and stack-overflow has the answer.
Link to https://stackoverflow.com/



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