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A knee wall is a short wall, typically under three feet (one metre) in height, used to support the rafters in timber roof construction. In his book A Visual Dictionary of Architecture , Francis D. K. Ching defines a knee wall as "a short wall supporting rafters at some intermediate position along their length."
The soil type is one of the essential factors during site planning. The soil needs to provide adequate bearing capacity and drainage, and help to retain heat. With respects to drainage, the most suitable type of soil for earth sheltering is a mixture of sand and gravel.
Fill dirt is taken from a location where soil is being removed as a part of leveling an area for construction; it may also contain sand, rocks, and stones, as well as earth. Fill dirt should be as free of organic matter as possible since organic matter will decompose creating pockets of empty space within the fill which could result in settling ...
The walls must resist the lateral pressures generated by loose soils or, in some cases, water pressures. [3] Every retaining wall supports a "wedge" of soil. The wedge is defined as the soil which extends beyond the failure plane of the soil type present at the wall site, and can be calculated once the soil friction angle is known. As the ...
Subgrade structures including underground and bermed dwellings (such as Earthships), cisterns, spring boxes, root cellars, and retaining walls can be built with stabilized soil fill or with additional reinforcement and water-resistant gravel or sand fill.
Comparison of a ha-ha (top) and a regular wall (bottom). Both walls prevent access, but one does not block the view looking outward. A ha-ha (French: hâ-hâ [a a] ⓘ or saut de loup [so dÉ™ lu] ⓘ), also known as a sunk fence, blind fence, ditch and fence, deer wall, or foss, is a recessed landscape design element that creates a vertical barrier (particularly on one side) while preserving ...
An example of lateral earth pressure overturning a retaining wall. The lateral earth pressure is the pressure that soil exerts in the horizontal direction. It is important because it affects the consolidation behavior and strength of the soil and because it is considered in the design of geotechnical engineering structures such as retaining walls, basements, tunnels, deep foundations and ...
An embankment is a raised wall, bank or mound made of earth or stones, that are used to hold back water or carry a roadway. A road , railway line , or canal is normally raised onto an embankment made of compacted soil (typically clay or rock-based) to avoid a change in level required by the terrain , the alternatives being either to have an ...