CIVIL ENGINEERING

Following points are to be carefully attended while supervising the brick masonry work.

The bricks to be used should confirm the requirements of the specification of the work.The brick should be saturated with water so as to prevent absorption of moisture from the mortar. This is effectively done by providing a tank at the site of work and by immersing the bricks for a period of atleast 2 hours before the bricks are actually placed in a position.The bricks should be properly laid on their beds. The mortar should completely cover the bed as well as the sides of bricks. The bricks should be laid with the frog uppermost.The brickwork should be carried out in proper bond.The brickwork should comply with the requirements of the specifications for the work.The mortar to be used for the work should be of quality and of proportion as specified.As far as possible, the brickwork should be raised uniformly. But when this is not possible or when a cross wall is intended to be inserted after somet…

There are three types of loads on the foundations: 
1. Dead load 2. Live load 3. Wind load
1. Dead load :  This is the load of the material used for the various components of a building such as walls, floors, roofs etc. All permanent loads are thus included in the dead load. Sometimes, the provision for the future construction of a partition wall is made by allowing a dead load of 10 kg/sqm of the floor area. It should be seen that the dead load of partitions constructed in future under this provision does not exceed the allowance made. 
2. Live load :  This is the movable load on the floor and hence it is variable. It is also sometimes known as superimposed load. It includes the load of persons standing on the floor, weight of snow on a roof etc. For the purpose of Design. The Live load is converted into equivalent dead load. Following table 1 gives the values of equivalent dead loads for floors of different types of buildings. Further, a percentage reduction is applied in the Design of pie…

Methods for determining the bearing capacity of soil

The bearing power of soil can be determined by any one of the following two methods:
1. Method of loading
2. Method of dropping a weight

1. Method of loading:
The material required for this test are given below.
1. A square steel plate
2. Wooden table
3. Wooden pegs
4. Dumpy level
5. Rolled steel section
6. Sand bags

The procedure to carry out the test is as follows:
1. A square pit of required size is excavated upto required depth. The side of the pit should be at least five times the side of steel plate. At the centre of the pit,a square hole is dug of size equal to steel plate. The bottom of the hole should correspond to the foundation level and the ratio of depth to breadth of pit should be made equal to the ratio of depth to break of hole.
2. The bottom of the hole is made level by scraping only and it is well protected against disturbing forces before and during the test.
3. The steel plate is put up in the hole and then the pl…