Foundations are playing an important role in preventing the buildings from environmental factors. They transmits the load of the building to the ground .Thus it prevents the building from dead and imposed loads and keeps the stability of the building. The foundation should be located in such places that its performance should not be affected due to any external environmental or other factors.
We should take care on constructing the foundation because of the following reasons. The foundations reduce the load intensity by distributing the loads of the building to the ground. Foundations also provides the level surface over which the building is constructing. It also anchors to the ground to prevent from flood water, burrowing animals and other environmental factors. It also protects the building from soil movements. Some type of soils are not suitable for foundation. Black cotton soil is one such type. They are expansive in nature, which causes cracks in the ground. So proper foundation has to be constructed in such soils.
Following factors are considered while selecting a land for foundation of buildings. The ground should be strong enough to keep the building. There are several tests available to check the quality of the soil. The soil should have the strength such that the intensity of load should not exceed the safe bearing capacity of soil. Shallow and Deep are the two types of foundations commonly used for construction of buildings. Shallow foundation is mainly used for the construction of houses whereas Deep foundation is used for the construction of flats and multi floor buildings. Piling is also done in deep foundation.
There are five chief categories of foundation basic to low-rise buildings inside which group domestic housing falls. What kind of ground you are building on will figure out what sort of foundation you should utilize.
Foundations and how they function.
- Trench Fill
- Strip Foundation
- Wide Strip Foundation
- Raft Foundation
- Piled Foundation
- Trench Fill.
Trench fill denotes a method utilized to fill up deep foundations trenches. What happens is this, you go to site and dig out for your foundations, however you wind up around 1600 or maybe even 2000mm below ground level. Well clearly you don’t want to fill all of that deepness with decent solid foundation concrete, so you order a weak concrete mix from your ready mix company and pour that into the trench till you touch the depth at which you suggest to place your foundation concrete. The trench fill needs to be only as solid as a decent supporting soil, to give an appropriate base for the strip foundation.
- Strip Foundation.
A strip foundation is the modest form of house foundation. It comprises of a Gen 1 grade concrete put to a width of 650m wide and typically to a deepness of 350mm, with strengthened steel to whichever top or bottom of the foundation or in some cases both. It is desirable to have an engineer design the foundation for you, and provide you with measurements preceding beginning. Strip foundations are being substituted with wide strip foundations and are currently demoted to supporting internal walls within the dwelling.
- Wide Strip Foundations.
Wide strip foundations are like normal strip foundations with the exception of that they are more extensive. They are made wider in order to spread the load over more region of soil. The wide strip foundation is normally utilized as a part of poorer bearing soil conditions. Wide strip foundations are generally 1 m wide x 450 mm deep, with reinforced steel to either top or bottom of the foundation or at times both, despite the fact that an engineer can determine different dimensions depending upon ground conditions and the load being forced onto the foundations.
- Raft Foundations.
Mostly this is a slab of concrete located over the base of the house with strengthened steel backup the concrete. While the raft foundation is as yet utilized it is gradually going out of fashion, as there is an inclination for the Raft to tilt in exceptionally poor soil conditions.
- Piled Foundations.
As great quality sites become scarce, the poor weak soils that previously had been unexploited are currently being built on. Weak or fluid soils or soils that contain a vast extent of compressible components are prime candidates for piling. A pile is essentially a square length of concrete with four strengthened steel bars going through it.
The Author of this article, Arun Mohan is writing articles for Swap Dial.
