At least some excavation is required for every building. Organic topsoil is subject to decomposition and to shrinking and swelling with changes in moisture content. It is excellent for growing lawns and landscape plants but unsuitable for supporting buildings. Often, it is scraped away from the building area and stockpiled to one side for redistribution […]
An earthquake is a sudden, rapid shaking of the earth surface caused by the breaking and shifting of rocks beneath. During earthquake, ground motion occurs in a random fashion in all directions radiating from a point within earth crust, called epicentre. It causes vibrations of structures and induces inertia forces on them. As a result
It is convenient to think of a building as consisting of three major parts: the superstructure, which is the above-ground portion of the building; the substructure, which is the habitable below-ground portion; and the foundations, which are the components of the building that transfer its loads into the soil (Figure 1). There are two basic
An earthquake is a sudden, rapid shaking of the earth surface caused by the breaking and shifting of rocks beneath. During earthquake, ground motion occurs in a random fashion in all directions radiating from a point within earth crust, called epicentre. It causes vibrations of structures and induces inertia forces on them. As a result
Where building substructures enclose basements, parking garages, or other usable space, groundwater must be kept out. Concrete alone is rarely adequate for this purpose. Moisture can migrate through its microscopic pores, or through other pathways created by shrinkage cracks, form tie holes, utility penetrations, and the joints between concrete pours. To ensure a substructure’s resistance
Fire Resistant Buildings It is reported that in USA fire kills more people each year than all other natural disasters combined including floors, cyclones and earthquake. The fire load in a building should be kept to the minimum possible. The term fire load indicates the amount of heat liberated in kilo joules per square metre
Mechanical Properties of Materials The mechanical behavior of materials is the response of the material to external loads. All materials deform in response to loads; however, the specific response of a material depends on its properties, the magnitude and type of load, and the geometry of the element. Whether the material “fails” under the load
All the distances required for making a plan are the horizontal distances. Hence in the field horizontal distances are measured or sufficient readings are taken to calculate horizontal distances. In this article, the methods used for linear measurements are explained. Method of preparing a plan using only linear measurements by conducting chain surveying is explained
Chain Surveying Chain survey is suitable in the following cases: Area to be surveyed is comparatively small. Ground is fairly level. Area is open and details to be filled up are simple and less. In chain surveying only linear measurements are made i.e. no angular measurements are made. Since triangle is the only figure that
Disadvantage of chain surveying is that, in it only distances are measured and hence area is to be covered with a network of triangles. If the length as well as angle of a line can be measured with respect to a known direction then it is possible to plot a line, independent of length of