Building

What is Arch?
An arch is a curved architectural shape that takes loads around an entrance and transfers them to abutments, jambs, or piers on either side of the arch’s profile. Since the Etruscans, arches have been a popular architectural feature, credited with inventing them, though the Romans refined and popularized them. Many other structural forms, such as vaults, arcades, and bridges, have evolved from the techniques used to design and construct arches.

There are no tensile stresses in arches because they are compressive constructions. They are self-supporting and are held in compression by the force of gravity acting on their weight. It makes them extremely stable and efficient, allowing them to span greater distances and carry heavier weights than horizontal beams.

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A roof is the highest component of a building that serves as a structural covering to protect the structure from the elements (i,e from rain, sun, wind, etc). Roofs are built in the same way as upper floors in terms of structure, albeit the shape of their upper surfaces may differ. Roofs have been built in a range of shapes and sizes, including flat, pitched, vaulted, domed, and combinations, depending on technical, economic, and aesthetic concerns.

A roof is made up of a structural element that holds the roof covering in place. Trusses, portal beams, slabs (with or without beams), shells, and domes are examples of structural elements. A.C. sheets, G.I. sheets, hardwood shingles, tiles, slates, or the slab itself can all be used as roof coverings.

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A window is an opening place in a building that is usually built over the wall to enable sunshine, free air circulation, and an outside view as well as the passage of sound. Windows are crucial for the ventilation of a room. Timber, steel, and aluminium are the most frequent materials used to make windows.

A number of critical aspects must be considered and followed when choosing a window for a building, including the temperature of that place, the location of the room, the size of the room, the wind direction to the room, the utility of the room where the window must be fixed, and the architectural point of view.

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By
Prof. Amol B. Kawade, Miss. Chaitali R. Satpute
Amrutvahini College of Engineering, Sangamner

Abstract
Although automation has advanced in manufacturing, the growth of automation in construction has been slow. Conventional methods of manufacturing automation do not lend themselves to construction of large structures with internal features. This may explain the slow rate of growth in construction automation. Contour Crafting (CC) is a recent layered fabrication technology that has a great potential in automated construction of whole structures as well as sub-components. Using this process, a single house or a colony of houses, each with possibly a different design, may be automatically constructed in a single run, imbedded in each house all the conduits for electrical, plumbing and air-conditioning. Our research also addresses the application of CC in building habitats on other planets. CC will most probably be one of the very few feasible approaches for building structures on other planets, such as Moon and Mars, which are being targeted for human colonization before the end of the new century. Contour Crafting is an emerging technology that uses robotics to construct free form building structures by repeatedly laying down layers of material such as concrete. The Contour Crafting technology scales up automated additive fabrication from building small industrial parts to constructing buildings. Optimal machine operation planning for Contour Crafting benefits the technology by increasing the efficiency of construction, especially for complicated structures. The research reported here has aimed at providing a systematic solution for improving the overall Contour Crafting system efficiency in building custom-designed buildings. An approach is first presented to find the optimal machine operation plan for the single nozzle Contour Crafting system. Other approaches are then presented to determine collision-free operation plans for machines with multiple nozzles. The models developed incorporate physical constraints as well as some practical construction issues.

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Insights from Building Professionals on Government Initiatives to Promote Environmentally Sound Practices
By Sandeep Singh

ABSTRACT
75% of the world’s energy is consumed in cities. 40% of the world’s energy is consumed in buildings. The most interesting potential for CO₂-reduction in cities from an economical point of view lays in the modernization of the building’s infrastructure. Making existing and new buildings to Green Buildings is one of the most effective levers to meet the challenges of CO₂ reduction in cities. The objective of the presentation is to give a short overview of the frame conditions, the existing labels and – most important – show success stories.

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For normal paint application, there are mainly three main components of paint, namely primer, undercoat and finishing coat.

Primer: This is the first layer of a typical painting system and it is used to inhabit corrosion and provide a good bond for subsequent coats.

Undercoat: This component acts as a barrier to corrosion agents and even out irregularities of bonding surface. It also serves to hide the underlying background and prevent the details and colour of the area of application to affect the designed colour and finishing details of paint.
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By
Fawale, Babatunde Lawale
Ajayi, Johnson Oluwafemi
Oyedemi, Peter Oluwatosin

ABSTRACT
This project is an evaluation of the effectiveness of strawbale in building construction. It introduced the use of straw, which when baled could be used as a resource, that is, as a walling material, more economically than other conventional walling materials.

This study shows the edges that strawbale has over other conventional walling materials (sandcrete block), thermal insulating property, availability ease of construction, economical amongst others. The minimum plaster thickness (coating) which when applied to the strawbale wall that can give the optimum strength was found to be 15mm this is obtained from compressive strength test.

It also displays the graphical representation of the thermal insulation tests carried out on the two prototype buildings (strawbale and sandcrete block), in which strawbale building retained more heat than the sandcrete block building.
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Low Cost Housing is a new concept which deals with effective budgeting and following of techniques which help in reducing the cost construction through the use of locally available materials along with improved skills and technology without sacrificing the strength, performance and life of the structure.There is huge misconception that low cost housing is suitable for only sub standard works and they are constructed by utilizing cheap building materials of low quality.The fact is that Low cost housing is done by proper management of resources.Economy is also achieved by postponing finishing works or implementing them in phases.

Building Cost
The building construction cost can be divided into two parts namely:
Building material cost : 65 to 70 %
Labour cost : 65 to 70 %
Now in low cost housing, building material cost is less because we make use of the locally available materials and also the labour cost can be reduced by properly making the time schedule of our work. Cost of reduction is achieved by selection of more efficient material or by an improved design.

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Those flat roof which face a problem of water accumulation require stability analysis under ponding conditions. For checking the stability we need to see the following equations, if both of these are fulfilled

C_p+0.9C_s<= 0.25
I_d>=25S⁴/10⁶
Where
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We take the smaller value out of these two conditions to calculate the total horizontal shear which is to be to be resisted by the shear connectors in building construction
V_h= 0.85f^‘_cA_c/2
V_h=A_s F_y/2
where
V_h = Total horizontal shear, kip (kN), between maximum positive moment and each end of steel beams (or between point of maximum positive moment and point of contraflexure in continuous beam)
f^‘_c= Specified compressive strength of concrete at 28 days, ksi (MPa)
A_c = Actual area of effective concrete flange in inch²(mm²)
A_s = Area of steel beam in inch²(mm²)

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