The Eurocodes are a set of harmonised European standards for the design of buildings and civil engineering structures.
With UK Building Regulations due to be revised in 2013 for the first time since the introduction of the Eurocodes, more engineers are having to adapt to working with these new standards. This guide will help you to easily access the wide range of resources available in our Library and beyond, and find the information relevant to your area of expertise.
There are 10 codes all together, made up of 58 parts. They cover design in all the main construction materials (concrete, steel, timber, masonry) and feature a very broad code at the beginning which outlines general principles and is used alongside all the others. There are also Eurocodes for geotechnical design and for earthquake resistance.
The European Union spent many years developing the codes and it is already mandatory to use them for construction of public works funded by the EU itself or by individual states.
In March 2010, the BSI withdrew the existing UK standards for structural design (BS 8110 and BS 5950, for example) and from April that year, the Eurocodes were adopted in full throughout the EU.
Why do we need a guide?
The Eurocodes are a complex set of documents that have to be used in conjunction with each other. They represent a change in the practice of structural design in the UK and are still not employed here on the majority of projects, despite becoming mandatory for use in public works two years ago. Private clients can continue to choose to use the older structural design codes.
Several organisations, including BSI, issued guidance and documents to help British engineers with the transition to the new codes, and to advise how to apply them in practice. This material is sometimes referred to as ‘non-contradictory complementary information’, and there is a considerable amount of it.
Download the guide
In its new Essential Guide to the Eurocodes, ICE has now listed the material together in one place, along with published handbooks and other advice. This will enable our members to navigate their way through the codes, identify the resources they need and find them quickly. A number are freely downloadable.
The guide is structured by Eurocode, so you only need to look at the section relevant to your area of interest. It also has an introductory section which lists the most general publications.
It does not attempt to list all 58 parts of the Eurocodes but concentrates on the supplementary information, such as the Published Documents from the BSI and other complementary resources, the Execution Standards (where they exist) and a selection of the design guidance available.
For a description and listing of the full set of Eurocodes, you could try the Eurocodes page on this website or the ICE and IStructE Eurocodes Expert website.