Building Walls

1. Building Walls Have one main purpose, to support roofs and ceilings such walls most often have three or more separate components. In today construction, a buildings wall will usually have: • The structural elements. • Insulation • Finish elements or surface. In addition, the wall may have various types of electrical wiring or plumbing. Buildings walls frequently become works of art externally and internally.

2. Boundary walls Include privacy walls, boundary-marking walls on property, and city walls. If it is made of masonry, it is considered a wall

3. Retaining Walls Retaining walls are a special type of wall, that may be either external to a building or part of a building, that serves to provide a barrier to the movement of earth, stone or water. • Dike • Cofferdams and bulkheads. The most important in proper design and installation of retaining walls is that the retained material is attempting to move forward and down slope due to gravity.

4. Types of retaining walls Gravity wall Gravity walls depend on the weight of their mass to resist pressures from behind and will often have a slight 'batter' setback, to improve stability by leaning back into the retained soil. Piling walls Are usually used in soft soils and light spaces. Sheet pile walls are made out of steel, vinyl or wood planks which are driven into the ground. Cantilever Wall Was the most common type of taller retaining wall. Cantilever walls are made from a relatively thin stem of steel-rein-forced, cast-in –place concrete or mortared masonry . Anchored wall This version of wall uses cables or other stays anchored in the rock or soil behind it. Usually driven into the material with buring, anchors are then expanded at the end of the cable.

5. Load Bearing Wall • It is one in which a wall of a structure bears the weight and force resting upon it, conducting the vertical load from the upper structure to the foundation • The materials most often used to construct load-bearing walls in large buildings are concrete, block, or brick • The commonest support is the beam • Load-bearing walls are one of the earliest forms of construction

6. Non Bearing Wall • It appears only where loads are carried by other members, as in heavy timber and other skeletal structures

7. Conclusions • A wall is a usually solid structure that defines and sometimes protects an area • There are three alls, exterior boundary walls, and retaining walls. principal types of structural walls: building w • The two types of walls are load-bearing, which supports the weight of floors and roofs, and non-bearing wall, which at most supports its own weight