Student Corner

Introduction
Interlocking Concrete Block Pavement (ICBP) has replaced the conventional concreting technique that required the use of traditional bricks and asphalt on the surface of the road. The traditional method was cumbersome as it required skill and accuracy to maintain the thickness of the road in addition to constant supervision by the site engineer. The roads had to be closed for hours as time was consumed in laying and mixing works. This problem was noticed by the higher authorities and the implementation of concrete blocks was recommended for ease of work.

The shape of such blocks varies as well as in size aspects because the design of these blocks constantly evolved during the years. The interlocking between the blocks was not good initially but as time went on, the design was modified so as to provide perfect interlocking. Interlocking is required to be perfect while laying as sand or other impurities might penetrate the gaps leaving the blocks isolated from the nearby blocks. This would result in breaking of the pattern and eventually the blocks would come out of the place. Hence, the works need to be precise on the field and is to be well monitored by the site engineers.

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Recently, the first bio-brick-based building in India was inaugurated at IIT Hyderabad on 2^nd September 2021. It is a part of the project BUILD (Bold Unique Idea Lead Development) to demonstrate the strength and versatility of the material. It is a sample building that is made of bio-bricks and supported by a metal framework. It is a perfect example of “wealth from waste”. The roof of the sample building is made of bio-bricks over PVC sheets. It helps to reduce heat. The inside and outside walls of the house are cement plastered to protect the bio-bricks from rain.

Fig 1: India’s first bio-brick based building, IIT Hyderabad

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Green building is a practice of construction which uses the processes responsible for environment friendly and efficient in resource usage through the life cycle of building starting from design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation and till deconstruction process. In recent years, green architecture has attracted the attention of many contemporary architects and designers in the world. The aim of this concept is to increase green space in urban areas and greater efficiency in buildings especially in cities. It is a step for the survival of human interaction and environment which is derived from the concept of sustainable development in harmony with environmental compatibility to meet the needs of people.

Need for Green Building:
Maximum use of fossil energy and explosive growth of greenhouse gases are the main cause of global warming today. On the other hand, the increasing population of the world as a result of indiscriminate construction has faced cities with serious problems of air pollution. With the population growth, increasing development of cities and subsequent destruction of green spaces has increased the need to find ways to coexist with nature which will conserve energy, prevent land pollution, and reduce energy consumption. Now-a-days vertical housing has become the solution for fulfilling the housing need in urban areas. According to the World Green Building Council’s report, buildings contribute to 33% of carbon dioxide emission, 17% of water consumption, 25% of wood consumption, 30-40%of raw material consumption, and 40-50% of energy consumption in its construction process and operation. Therefore based on these facts, an environmentally sound construction and development should be considered to reduce the energy consumption. So the Green Building concept is being a trusted way to solve this issue. It is said that the building construction companies produce the second largest amount of greenhouse gases (30-40%) and demolition waste. The major energy consumption in building comes from modern lifestyle equipment like air-conditioning system, cooler, water heating to provide comfort to building occupants etc. These all add to pollution. Occupant activities also generate large amount of solid waste and water waste as well. As compared to a regular structure, a green building uses less energy, less water and other natural resources which create less waste and greenhouse gas and provides a healthy living place for people.

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Introduction
Many new inventions are being used nowadays in the construction industry, including different materials in the construction world, additional equipment, different types of machinery, etc. In this competitive world, it has become utmost necessary to cope with the neighboring countries in terms of infrastructure growth. All these modern techniques help reducing extra expenses, cut labor charges, reducing transportation fees, long life of materials, and many more. Some of these construction innovations are discussed below.
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Introduction
Architects widely use Revit for a number of reasons, but nowadays, it is gaining traction among civil engineers too. Civil Engineers widely adopt AUTOCAD to make plans for buildings, design for water tanks, and many more. Nowadays, this software is getting replaced by Revit as it offers 3D rendering quite quickly compared to AUTOCAD. Some additional blocks are also there in Revit that can be imported as plugins which are quite beneficial to place on the drawings without consuming much time.

Both AUTOCAD and Revit are the products of Autodesk, and they share many similarities despite having many differences. One of the main reasons Revit has become so popular is that it was built with the BIM process in mind, and it also works with cloud computing. This allows everyone participating in the project to get their hands on any information they need.

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Cement we use may go bad during transportation and storage prior to its use in work.We need to test the cement for a good quality and better performance in concrete mixtures. Broadly there are two tests for cement-

• Field Testing
• Laboratory Testing

Field Testing
It is generally done when cement is used for small or minor works. Following are the field tests-

• After opening the bag of cement, we should give a good look, There should not be any visible lumps present in it. Colour of cement should be greenish grey.
• It should give a smooth and gritty feeling when pinch of cement is feel between the fingers.
• If we thrust our hand into the cement bag, it must give a cool feeling.There should not be any lumps inside.
• If we throw some amount of cement into a bucket of water, it should float sometime before sinking.
• A cube made from a stiff paste of 100gm cement and little water is to be put in a glass plate. The glass plate is taken slowly under water in a bucket. The shape of the cube should not be deformed while taking into water. After 24 hours cube should retain its original shape.

If a sample of cement truly satisfies the above tests we may say that the cement is not bad. But the above tests do not really indicate that the cement is really good for important work or big structure. For using cement in important and major structure, it should satisfy the Indian Standard specifications. It is possible only in laboratory testing to confirm the requirements of specified physical and chemical properties.
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Mortar and lime are the two most important binding materials in building and road construction. Thus every civil engineer must learn as it is very important that every civil engineer knows about its properties. Here, all important information has been pointed out in bulleted form so that memorization becomes easy for students. It is highly recommended for competitive exams. Some important information is discussed as follows-

• Bulking of sand criteria –
  • For moisture of 5% to 8% leads to an increase in volume by 20% to 40%.
  • If the material is finer, then more will be more bulking of sand. This is called bulking.
• Mortars
  • Bulk density
  • Type of Binding material
  • Nature of application
  • Special mortars

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Introduction
We often overlook the perspective of carbon emissions by cement materials in the construction industry. Several types of bricks have been invented by researchers for the betterment of the environment. Among such, one stands out as the Carbon-Negative Brick that cuts carbon emissions as well as construction cost by 50%. It is also known as Carbon Busters or Carbon Eating Bricks or Carbon Negative Bricks, and many more.

In the UK, this block was launched to collect more carbon dioxide than is produced (14 kg per tonne). This brick has high-performance properties and was developed by British business Lignacite, Ltd. in collaboration with Carbon8 Aggregates. It is made up of more than 50% recycled material, including Carbon8 pellets (produced from waste to energy plant thermal leftovers), water, and carbon dioxide. In order to create the carbon negative building block, the resulting unit has been included in the products of the company.
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Introduction
This debate is common nowadays because of civil engineer’s shifted nature towards AI-based calculations and techniques. These software are used for designing 3D structures, analyzing them, and calculating reinforcements requirements in the building. These are very effective in saving time by engineers, avoiding long calculations that took days, and experimenting with various designs just by clicking on the moderations in seconds. These softwares are allrounder and are compatible with other BIM softwares too. Like for instance, the AUTOCAD drawing file can be imported to STAAD and nodes, and beams can be generated for analysis, and so on.

There are endless possibilities with these softwares, and it varies from person to person, company to companies whether they use these softwares for one motive or the other.
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INTRODUCTION
While building houses it is important to take care of the exterior as well as interior of the building as occupants encourage having beautiful surroundings to enlighten their home. Along with wall finishes many occupants also refer various floor finishes to increase the aestheticy of their home. Floor finishes are upper part of the concrete slabs mainly covering the floors. There are various types of floor finishes which will be discussed here. Choosing the right kind of flooring is essential as to know which floor is preferable in what type of weather conditions. Like for instance, concrete or marble flooring can’t be used in cold weather conditions as it will make lower the temperature of the house more. So, in this case wood flooring is preferred as it helps to maintain a warmer temperature inside the house compared to outdoor temperature. All these will be discussed in details.
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