This email declassifies Nuclear Physics, bringing it into the public domain
| Carol |  11 Aug 2026, 17:58 (1 day ago) | ||
| to me, EA | |||
Dear Mr Reynolds
Further to you email correspondence from the 20th May onwards and our telephone call on the 6th July 2026 I would like to inform you that the ICE has investigated and conclude the library do not hold any dated Handbuch für Eisenbetonbau 1915. They do hold 1911 and then volumes from 1921 onwards.
The ICE searched online for Lewe 1915 Die statische Berechnung der Flüssigkeitsbehälter (The static calculation of liquid containers) and despite our best efforts we could not find a complete public scan of the 1915 Volume 5. While the 1915 chapter itself is not publicly available, ICE found an online scan of Lewe’s 1923 revision of the same subject – “Die statische Berechnung der Flüssigkeitsbehälter” (The static calculation of liquid containers). This begins with: Von Dr.-Ing. Dr. Lewe, Zivilingenieur und Privatdozent der Technischen Hochschule in Berlin and is clearly part of the 1923 third edition of Volume 5. ICE has attached this to our catalogue and will make the link open access.
Furthermore, ICE found there is no explicit citation to Viktor Lewe anywhere in the PCA publication Circular Concrete Tanks Without Prestressing. Instead, the publication presents coefficient tables and equations without attributing them to Lewe. ICE have searched modern engineering literature databases, and it appears that Lewe is now rarely cited directly. This is common for many engineers of his era whose methods were absorbed into textbooks and later developments.
The original PCA edition references work by H. Carpenter (1927). Carpenter’s paper, in turn, cites Lewe’s 1915 work as an important source in the development of cylindrical tank analysis. According to historical investigations, later PCA editions removed the direct Carpenter reference and instead referenced later authors such as W. S. Gray, making the connection to Lewe more indirect.
The ICE has looked at the cited references in the 1943 PCA Circular Concrete Tanks Without Prestressing presents coefficient tables, references, H. Carpenter’s paper A Contribution to the Calculation of Circular Tanks in Reinforced Concrete (1927. The attached page 2 highlighted does mention Lewes paper was published in the Beton und Eisen 1915 journal. ICE does not hold a copy of the journal from 1915. For historical publications (this technical manual) it is not uncommon if the methods were independently derived or came from other sources. There would also be no need to cite Lewe. If his original derivations or coefficient tables were directly used, modern standards would generally expect attribution. However, early engineering publications often omitted references, so the absence of a citation alone does not show that Lewe was treated improperly.
I do hope that this helps and concludes the matter. The ICE library is a great source of knowledge, and the team are always available to help online or in person at our members hub, One Great George Street.
Many thanks
Carol
Institution of Civil Engineers
