Civil Engineering

  Properties of a good building stone 1. Crushing Strength: For a good structural stone, the crushing strength should be greater than 100 N/mm 3 . The approximate values of crushing strength of some of the stones are shown in table 2-1.   2. Appearance: The stones which are to be used for face work should be decent in appearance and they should be capable of preserving their colour uniformly for a long time. The colour of the stones for face work should be chosen by keeping in mind the general get up of the surrounding area. It is desirable to prefer light coloured stones as compared to dark coloured stones. 3. Durability: A good building stone should be durable. The various factors contributing to durability of a stone are its chemical composition, texture, resistance to atmospheric and other influences, location in structure, etc. Following are the important atmospheric agencies which affect the durability of a stone: (i) Alternate conditions of heat and co...

  Aggregates Aggregates are inert granular materials such as sand, gravel, or crushed stone that, along with water and portland cement, are an essential ingredient in concrete. For a good concrete mix, aggregates need to be clean, hard, strong particles free of absorbed chemicals or coatings of clay and other fine materials that could cause the deterioration of concrete. Aggregates, which account for 60 to 75 percent of the total volume of concrete, are divided into two distinct categories--fine and coarse. Fine aggregates generally consist of natural sand or crushed stone with most particles passing through a 3/8-inch sieve. Coarse aggregates are any particles greater than 0.19 inch, but generally range between 3/8 and 1.5 inches in diameter. Gravels constitute the majority of coarse aggregate used in concrete with crushed stone making up most of the remainder. Natural gravel and sand are usually dug or dredged from a pit, river, lake, or seabed. Crushed aggregate is produce...

How to Decrease Loads in buildings? Structural analysis is a very important part of a design of buildings and other built assets such as bridges and tunnels, as structural loads can cause stress, deformation and displacement that may result in structural problems or even failure. The building regulations require that structures must be designed and built to be able to withstand all load types that they are likely to face during their lifecycle. There are a number of different types of load than can act upon a structure, the nature of which will vary according to the design, use, location and materials being used. Design requirements are generally specified in terms of the maximum loads that a structure must be able to withstand.    Loads are generally classified as either dead loads (DL) or live loads (LL):      Dead loads refer to the structure's self weight and generally remain constant during the structure's life.      Live loads, such as traffic l...

Concrete definition Concrete is construction material. It is a mixture of cement, sand, fine aggregate and coarse aggregate and water. Portland cement  is commonly is used as a type of portland cement. Concrete is the major building material in the construction industry. It can be easily molded into a durable structure member. In building construction material, concrete is used in beams, columns, slab, foundation, and another place is used concrete. In concrete, sand is used as a fine aggregate, gravels and crushed stones are used as coarse aggregate. When the cement acts as a building material which forms a paste with water and on hardening their cement paste holds coarse and fine aggregates together to form a solid mass. Components Of concrete Cement, aggregate, water are the ingredients of concrete Aggregate may be fine aggregates sand or coarse aggregates like gravel and crushed stone. Cement It uses as the binding material and acts as a binder for coarse and fi...