Factors Affecting Quality of Topographic Survey Topographic surveyors perform most of their operational duties away from the parent unit. Topographic surveying involves fieldwork over a project area. Survey fieldwork consists of making observations and measurements; recording data; and returning the data to a computer and/or draftsman for computation, compilation, and dissemination. Surveyors must overcome many … Read more
Types of Limes Different types of limes are used for building construction. It is not generally found in the free state. Lime is a product which is obtained by burning lime stone, a raw material, found in lime stone hills or lime stone boulders in the beds of old river, kankar found below ground level, … Read more
Building Finishes Building finishes such as plastering, varnishing, dis-tempering, white-washing, coloring, etc basically perform two functions as pointed below. They give a protective coating to the surfaces which protects them from weather effects such as rain water, frost, heat etc, and They provide decorative effects which add to the appearance of the surfaces and building … Read more
Unit Weight/Dead Weight of Construction Materials The tables given below give the unit weight or dead weight of some common construction material that is used by designer while computing load related calculation. 1. Bituminous Substance Item Weight (kg/m3) Anthracite coal 1550 Peat (dry) 560 to 640 Charcoal (light) 300 Coke 1000 Graphite 500 Crude oil … Read more
Basic Unit Conversion Tables Some of the useful and common unit conversion tables used by civil engineers to convert Metric and FPS units are given below. 1. Length FPS TO METRIC METRIC TO FPS 1 in 2.54 cm 1 cm 0.393701 in 1 ft 30.48 cm 1 m 3.28084 ft 1 yd 0.09144 m 1 … Read more
Factors Affecting Transportation The success of transportation engineering depends upon the co-ordination between the three primary elements, namely the vehicles, the roadways, and the road users. Their characteristics affect the performance of the transportation system and the transportation engineer should have fairly good understanding about them. This post elaborated salient human, vehicle, and road factors … Read more
Tremie Concreting – On Site Precautions During tremie concreting the following precautions are to be taken while doing the work: The concrete should be coherent, rich in cement (not less than 370 kg/m3) and of slump between 150 and 180 mm. When concreting is carried out under water, a temporary casing should be installed to … Read more
Different Forms of Bitumen 1. Cutback Bitumen Normal practice is to heat bitumen to reduce its viscosity. In some situations preference is given to use liquid binders such as cutback bitumen. In cutback bitumen suitable solvent is used to lower the viscosity of the bitumen. From the environmental point of view also cutback bitumen is … Read more
Uses of Geotextiles Geotextiles are porous fabric manufactured from synthetic material such as polypropylene, polyester, polyethylene, nylon, polyvinyl chloride and various mixtures of these. They are available in thicknesses ranging from 10 to 300 mils (1 mil = 1/1000 inch) in widths upto 30 ft, in roll lengths upto 2000 ft. The permeability of geotextile … Read more
Defects in Brickwork The followings are some of the common defects in brickwork that are found at construction site. The bricks used were of substandard quality compared to the quality specified in the contract. No tests were carried out to find out the efflorescence level and water absorption in the bricks The bricks were not … Read more