Walls are built to partition living area into different parts. They impart privacy and protection against temperature, rain and theft. Walls may be classified as:
[1] LOAD BEARING WALLS
If beams and columns are not used, load from roof and floors are transferred to foundation by walls. Such walls are called load bearing walls. They are to be designed to transfer the load safely. The critical portion of the walls are near the openings of doors and windows and the positions where concrete beams rest.
Minimum wall thickness used is 200 mm. It is also recommended that the slenderness ratio of wall defined as ratio of effective length or effective height to thickness should not be more than 27.
[2] PARTITION WALLS
In framed structures partition walls are built to divide floor area for different utilities. They rest on floors. They do not carry loads from floor and roof. They have to carry only self-weight. Hence normally partition walls are thin. Depending upon the requirement these walls may be brick partition, clay block partition, glass partition, wood partition, and aluminium and glass partition.
[3] RETAINING WALLS
Retaining wall is a structure designed and constructed to resist the lateral pressure of soil, when there is a desired change in ground elevation that exceeds the angle of repose of the soil.
The build of retaining walls consists of materials like masonry, stone, brick, concrete, vinyl, steel or timber. Certain areas have topography that varies from slightly rolling to mountainous. For such areas, retaining walls allow the construction of steps or level areas.
Every retaining wall supports a “wedge” of soil. The wedge is defined as the soil which extends beyond the failure plane of the soil type present at the wall site, and can be calculated once the soil friction angle is known. As the setback of the wall increases, the size of the sliding wedge is reduced. This reduction lowers the pressure on the retaining wall.
A retailing wall must satisfy the following conditions
- Must not be slippery
- Resist Overturning
- Must be build on a good bearing capacity soil.
Love this post and you love to get a copy
Click on the button below to get the PDF file and Read Offline.