Construction Tech Flashcards
Con tech (42 cards)
1. Do you know any MMC?
a. MMC stands for modern methods of construction, examples include solar panels, recycled and reclaimed materials, green roofs, air source heat pumps
- Can you name any building regulations?
a. O – Overheating in buildings
b. M – Access to and use of buildings
c. L – conservation of fuel and power
- What is your current industry knowledge of the building regs?
a. New process in place October 2023
b. Additional requirements being set out for higher risk buildings that are 18+ metres in height or have 7 or more storeys and have at least two residential dwellings
- What are the different types of foundations?
a. Strip, Pile, Pad, Raft
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of Strip foundations?
a. Used to transfer continuous loads
b. Where ground conditions are good
c. Good for clays and seasonally changing soils
d. Not good for really tall buildings
e. Takes a lot of time due to excavation and curing time, a lot of concrete so costs a lot, complicated formwork
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of Pile foundations?
a. Good for large structures and very poor ground conditions
b. Expensive
c. Can be very noisy and intrusive
d. Expensive due to the plant hire required and need for piling mat and rig
e. Bored takes a long time due to the boring of the hole
f. CFA is quite quick as excavation and pouring is consecutive
g. Transporting pre cast piles is difficult
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of Pad foundations?
a. Good for point loads like columns in warehouse or ground beams
b. don’t need a full circumference of foundations
c. requires lots of smaller excavations
d. not good for poor ground conditions or large structures
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of Raft foundations?
a. Good for poor ground conditions and small buildings
b. Not good for large loads
c. Requires lots of concrete
d. Requires lots of sturdy formwork
- Can you give me the advantages of pre-cast concrete?
a. Better QAQC in the factory.
b. Reduces time on site and therefore associated preliminaries costs
c. Reduces the time you need to wait for it to cure on site, better programme
- How big is a window board?
a. This depends on the size of the window opening and the design, how recessed is the window, and how thick the wall is.
- What are section 38 works?
a. Construction of new estate road that will be adopted by the public highway
- What is S278 works?
a. These consist of alterations to existing highways
- Is there any RICS literature relating to MMC you are aware of?
a. I am aware of the report prepared by RICS on MMC looking at the forward lookahead for MMC.
- What are the British Standards (BS)?
a. Recommendations to minimum standards for construction and design
- What are the International Standards (ISO)?
a. Same as above but international and compatible with BS
- You mentioned ponds and swales as a drainage solution, are you aware of any other drainage solutions?
a. These are classed as Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems. I also know about traditional drainage systems composing of pipes and manholes etc. I understand there is symphonic drainage which is used on large roof spans
- A Client has a large area of land and is looking to develop a warehouse, how would you advise him between using a Concrete structural frame or a steel structural frame.
a. I would advise the client of the advantages and disadvantages of both. However a steel portal frame would traditionally suit a warehouse.
b. This is because of the long spans able to be achieved with steel as well as its quick erection on site, thus reducing cost of preliminaries
c. Steel is lightweight also, meaning it can support its own weight and the roof structure, whereas concrete would not achieve this.
d. A warehouse requires large open spaces (tall) for racking, which concrete could not do.
e. Steel is stronger, more tensile and compressive
f. Lighter so requires smaller foundations
- Steel vs concrete?
a. Steel is more Lightweight
b. Steel has better Large spans
c. Steel is Recyclable/sustainable
d. Both can be prefabricated and have quality control (moreso steel)
e. Steel is erected quicker on site, no drying time
f. Steel requires less foundation as its lighter
g. Concrete requires lots of maintenance, can be damaged just from air
h. Concrete is fireproof, steel needs protection
i. Concrete can usually be more local (steel from abroad)
j. Concrete has better sound and heat insulation
k. Cost – it depends!
- On the Cromwell Lane Housing Dev, you note that the ground conditions were poor, what does this mean for the Client? And can you advise on the differences between deep strip foundations and piled foundations?
a. For the client this means that foundations are going to have to be built to withstand and counteract this poor ground. Or additional excavation, earthworks or stabilisation will be required to the area, which is going to cost a lot of money.
b. Piles for houses are generally more expensive at £12-15k per house and strip foundations at £180/m3 so £4-7k per house.
c. Deep strip are linear and distribute loads from continuous walls whereas piles are long concrete structures distributing the load to the ground, or end bearing to the rock bed. Or in the case of house piles, sheet piles can be used which are made of steel, and can be re used when the house is demolished.
- You delivered a seminar on foundations, therefore talk me through the different options of foundations and when you’d advise a client to use them?
a. Foundations are the concrete mass in which a building sits on, between the ground, transferring the lode of the building into them.
b. The different types and when they’d be used are:
i. Strip foundations, I would advise a client to use these where the building is at a certain size (small) as they are usually not suited to larger building lodes. Where there is horizontal or continuous loading to be spread by external and internal loadbearing walls, and where the ground conditions are suitable for them. If the ground conditions are a bit poorer, I would advise deep strip.
ii. Piled foundations (CFA, bored, driven and sheet). I would advise to use these where ground conditions are poor and a suitable stratum needs to be reached in order to spread the lode, I would also advise this when the building is very large as there would be a massive amount of lode imposed which needs distributing deep into the ground and surrounding earth.
iii. Pad foundations. I would advise the use of pad where the building construction calls for point lodes, such as steel columns in a warehouse, usually cheaper than strip as it isn’t used across the entire perimeter
iv. Raft foundations. I would advise on the use of these where the building needs to spread the lode over the whole area, this is good for smaller buildings or very poor ground conditions, this can also act as a floor slab, saving on additional cost and time
- On Cromwell lane, did you get any input from the structural engineer?
a. We had a GI report which detailed the ground conditions, and that some areas of the site were worse than others, and that due allowance should be made for pile foundations, I then presented some options to the client based on different % of houses that need piles on site.
- Is it wise to use past experience to assume the CBR, and what was the assumption?
a. I used very similar previous projects that were all greenfield sites so had a similar CBR (Greenfield sites are generally softer and require a higher CBR). I used 3%. I advised my client of this assumption, and to undertake a further GI.
- On Cromwell Lane, what did you actually advise, and what was the outcome?
a. I advised on the costs of different options of foundations, and the impact that different % splits of foundations would have on the total cost of the project, taking into account the GI report findings where some plots need strip, and some need piles.
- Have you got any other advice on construction tech?
a. I noted on the Mills & Reeve project that the client had selected a rolled carpet for their new office fit out, this was a new client who hadn’t done a lot of projects. I suggested early on in the design stage that carpet tiles better suit an office environment due to access for the RAF. I proposed 2 different costs for the client consideration and requested input from the architect.
