Ravindra K. Dhir

Civil engineering materials

Civil Engineering Materials prepares you for today’s engineering challenges, providing a broad overview of the materials you will use in your studies and career. You are not only introduced to traditional materials, such as concrete, steel, timber, and soils, but you also explore important non-traditional materials, such as synthetics and industrial-by products. The authors use a wealth of practical examples and straight-forward explanations to ensure you gain a full understanding of the characteristics and behavior of various materials, how they interact, and how to best utilize and combine traditional and non-traditional materials. While emphasizing the effective use of civil engineering materials, the authors carefully consider sustainability to give you a broader context of how materials are current used in contemporary applications.

Deformation of Metals

ii)Excessive Plastic Deformation(EPD) This type of deformation is permanent in nature. It is the deformation taking place beyond the elastic zone. Under the influence of external load the material will undergo changes.As the magnitude of the load is increased the deformation becomes more and more and reaches a maximum value corresponding to the ultimate point. Higher the load higher is the deformation and is referred to as excessive deformation. Beyond point B, is plastic deformation and the changes are permanent and the material cannot recover its strain free state.Once the external load is removed the material will not recover its free state. It will have induced strain in it.

Shear Strength of Soil

In soil mechanics, shear strength refers to the magnitude of the shear stress the soil can sustain. The shear strength is exceeded when the interlocking particles can no longer resist the force exerted upon them; at this point the particles slide past each other, creating a slip plane, as illustrated above. The slip planes cause blocks of earth to slide past to each other, leading to potential collapses in many scenarios such as retaining walls, structures with shallow foundations and slopes: see below!

Brickwork and Blockwork

Bricks and blocks are components of durable masonry construction in which uniformly shaped individual units are laid in courses with mortar as the bed and binding material. They consist of high mass materials with good compressive strength formed into units that can be lifted and handled by a single worker. Materials used can include brick, stone (e.g. marble, granite, travertine, limestone), manufactured stone, concrete, glass, stucco and tile.