On Tuesday in class we went over Construction Commonalities. The consensus in class was that common similarities in projects include but are not limited to: the layout of the site and how it is utilized (parking, structures, trash, material storage, etc.), materials used in the project, equipment bot active and idle, labor, temporary buildings/trailers, and building mock ups. Included in this realm is also site fencing, temporary plumbing and water, permits, and state of completion. Most of these are self explanatory; however, mock ups, are small sections of a wall or structure that the builders use as a guide to show what the completed production should look like with all of its components visible to them.

For Our lab assignment on Tuesday we had to go out to two facilities and find their commonalities and differences. The two sites were the new Basketball Practice Facility, and the New Residence Hall West. As for their similarities I found that both sites are fenced off, are around the same stage of completion, both had idle and active machinery, workers working on both the outside and inside, construction trailers, material piles, site superintendents, and on site parking for their workers. The differences were quite obvious, the New Residence Wall West site was poorly organized with equipment, trash, and parts laying everywhere while the Basketball Practice Facility was far better organized and had everything neatly laid out. Parking was scattered for the Residence Hall Project, and open trenches were filled with water around the building. Workers at the Residence Hall seemed to either be on break or completely lost and were just standing around. The Residence Hall is covered in Hokie Stone while the Basketball Facility in concrete and decorative stone.

Industry Day at VT

I. Mobile Crane

The first exibit I came to was the crane. I was already set up with all outriggers out to prevent it from tipping over. About 75 feet away was a partially constructed wall section with the top piece waiting to be lifted into place. The crane operator picked one student to act as a guide to place the load, he uses a series of hand singals to instruct the operator where to move the load. Another group acted as the rigging crew and tag lie guide, the riggin crew hooked four straps to the boom of the crane. The tag line helps guide the load and keeps it from swaying in the air. After about fifteen minutes they had finally guided the load onto the mock-up wall and bolted it up. All the hand singals were regulated by OSHA.

II. Backhoe Simulator

The next exibit was a $46,000 simulator. It uses GPS technology that is uploaded to a handheld decive that can be pluged into any machine on the site. The program then transmits into the machine all data from any drawings pertaining to the site. This all comes up on a disply next to the driver of the machine. This was diminstrated by using a backhoe simulator. The simulator is used by American Infastructure to train it's dozer drivers. This technology makes working a site more effeicent and precise down to millimeters. All of this translates into a more effiecent site and more productivity. They also lets students see what it was like to use the simulator. This was my favorite part as it was much harder to drive and use the dozer than it looks.

III. Chandler Inc. Cement Mixer

The next exibit was a cement truck for Chandler Inc., which is a mid atlantic cement contractor. The driver told us that this Mack truck was new with under 5,000 miles and had just been washed. The cost new for the truck was in excess of $160,000. The truck's mixer can hold up to 10.5 cubic yards of concrete, although DOT regulations only allow them to carry 7.25 cubic yards on most public roads. The truck has two other tanks onboard one with water and the other with a high pressure gas used in mixing the concrete. Thsi truck is also equiped with a $12,000 exhaust stack that has near 0 emissions fron the turbo diesel engine. Making this truck environmentally friendly and effecient.







IV. Trimble Site Posistioning

The forth exibit is a new site surveying tool using GPS and realtime posistioning technology. What used to take a team of surveyors now only takes one man who can upload the information from inside his truck. This technology is quickly becoming an industry standard and is doing away with old surveying and site control methods. Thsi device can upload all of its information to a program that will then send it to all equipment on site making for a saver and more efficient site controls.






V. American Infastructure Motor Grader

A VT grad named Walter worked this piece of equipment he stressed the need for civil engineers to know programs such as AutoCad and GPS technology used in these machines. He reinforced what had already been said about the GDP surveyor unit.







Interesting Points:

I found the crane simulator and conrete mixer to be the most interesting because of their complexity, size, and shear cost. Though both seem simple there is a lot of technology and precision that goes into their operation. The concrete mixer has different valaves for pressure of water in different concrete mixes plus the operator has to know when the correct mix is ready and how much to pour. The crane simulator showed that operating heavy quipment takes a lot skill and training to master the art.

Workers have spent the past several months installing the hokiestone exterior to the New Residence Hall West. As you can see the are installing it in a diagonal method working four floors of scafoling at the same time. This process is very time consuming and looks to require skilled labor to set the stone straight and in a fashion so that the other stones will fit properly.

I have also included a photo taken several months ago showing the blackcat that was applied to the CMU before the stone could be layed on. There was also work going on on the inside where they seemed to be finishing off the interior walls and sealing off the remaining parts of the building that were exposed to the outside.

A plastic covering over much of the buildings exterior which provide a way for the motar to dry and be kept out of the winter weather.

Sketches

I had to sketch 3 different sets of drawings.
1.) BFH Drawings which include a steele beam section, a section view from the drop ceiling to the drip pan, a stairwell plan view, a detailed stairwell drawing, the tread plan, and a section view of the stairwell.

2.) In the drawings of my dorm room I showed the plan view (floor plan) and a section of the exterior wall and interior wall. The exterior wall showed the CMU, window seal, hokiestone, insulation, and the window itself. The interior wall section showed the CMU, doorframe, header, trim, and encasing above the door itself.

3.) I also drew two sections of the mock up on Perry Street. One showed the hokiestone, CMU, insulation, and foam board. The other showed Cast-In-Place concrete, CMU, insulation, and the foam board.

Estimating

This estimating project was to do a takeoff estimate of a foundation structure of a building. After the takeoff was complete we then proceeded to us RS Means to create a Assembly Price (top image) and a unit price (bottom image). The Assembly price is derived through RS Mean's estimate of how much each assembly would cost. ie: footings, slab, ect.

The unit price is a detailed price of each unit that goes into the project. Both unit and assembly prices include labor.

Wall Assembly

Image: http://www.masonrymagazine.com/7-07/art/moistFigure1.jpg

This wall assembly is a typical one that is made up of a brick veneer exterior with a drainage cavity behind it. This is followed by polystyrene insulation with a WRB memberane behind it. Finally all of this is is in fornt of a CMU block wall that is in front of the interior drywall.

Present, 02-24-09