Engineeering Drawing and

Drafting
Assignment #1

Stone
Structures

Name Muhammad Arif Samoon

Roll No. 06
Department Urban And Infrastructure Engineering

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

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Computing Languages

Stone being used in Refuge Tower

Stone Structures
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Contents Page #

1 INTRODUCTION 3
2 DIFFERENT STONES 4
a. Marble
b. Gneiss
c. Limestone
d. Mississippian Limestone
e. Quartz Pebbles
f. Carboniferous Sandstone
g. Stone Mountain Granite
3 STONE STRUCTURES 11
a. Stone Masonry
b. DryStone Walls
c. Stone Bridge
d. Stone Fireplaces
e. Rock Fill Dams
i. Rawal Dam (ACE)
f. Stone Pillars
g. Stone Arches
4 GLOSSARY 19
5 REFERENCES 20

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1 INTRODUCTION
Stone is a rock or a piece of rock, shaped or finished for a
particular purpose.
The American Heritage ® Dictionary

Stone is Sustainable
Stone is a highly durable, low maintenance building material with high thermal mass. It
is versatile, available in many shapes, sizes, colors and textures, and can be used for
floors, walls, arches and roofs. Stone blends well with the natural landscape, and can
easily be recycled for other building purposes. But is stone a sustainable building
solution? There are currently over 400 building stone quarries in the UK, more than
enough to meet current demand, but with a growing influx of cheap, imported stone
and synthetic imitations, the industry is under threat. To meet sustainability standards,
steps must be taken to ensure that the stone is found on site, reclaimed from nearby
demolished buildings or sourced from a local stone quarry. Only then can stone be
considered a true example of a sustainable building material.

Concrete and steel may weigh as much, but nothing can rival stone for its beauty and durability.
Building with stone By Charles McRaven

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2 DIFFERENT STONES
a. Marble
Marble is metamorphosed
limestone, and so it is easily
cut like limestone. However,
because it has been
metamorphosed, primary
inhomogeneities have been
obliterated to provide a rock
with much more uniform
physical properties, and only
vague traces of original
layering or structure can be
seen (as in the view below).
As a result, marble is Marble in the U.S. Post Office, Athens, Georgia, U.S.A.
ƒ easily cut
ƒ sculpted without breaking
ƒ polished to a fine shiny finish

That's why marble has been used for centuries for

building and sculpting. For example, the Parthenon and
the other buildings of the (Greek) Athenian Acropolis
were built of marble.

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b. Gneiss
Gneiss is a metamorphic rock
typically resulting from intense
metamorphism, often during
mountain-building events.

Many of the builings and retaining

walls at the U.S. Military Academy
in West Point, New York, are made
of gneiss. Washington Hall at the
United States Military Academy is
built of gneiss. Gneiss at West Point, New York, U.S.A.

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c. Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock
composed largely of the mineral
calcite (calcium carbonate: CaCO3).
The deposition of limestone strata is
often a by-product and indicator of
biological activity in the geologic
record. Calcium (along with nitrogen,
phosphorus, and potassium) is a key
mineral to plant nutrition: soils
overlying limestone bedrock tend to
be pre-fertilized with calcium.
Limestone is an important stone for
masonry and architecture, vying with
only granite and sandstone to be the
most commonly used architectural
stone. Limestone is a key ingredient
of quicklime, mortar, cement, and
concrete. The solubility of limestone
in water and weak acid solutions One of the jewels of the Aldstadt (Old City) of Innsbruck,
Austria, is the city's cathedral, the Jakobsdom (the
leads to important phenomena. Cathedral of St. Jakob).
Regions overlying limestone bedrock
tend to have fewer visible groundwater sources (ponds and streams), as
surface water easily drains downward through cracks in the limestone. While
draining, water slowly (over thousands or millions of years) enlarges these
cracks; dissolving the calcium-carbonate and carrying it away in solution.
Most well-known natural cave systems are through limestone bedrock.
.

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d. Mississippian Limestone

The east side of the present Georgia State Capitol building in Atlanta, Georgia

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e. Quartz Pebbles
Such pebbles are the abundant
product of the weathering of the
Piedmont's high-grade metamorphic
rocks, granites, and quartz veins.
Stream gravels rich in quartz pebbles
are therefore common in the Piedmont,
and the church's builders incorporated
them as a cheap and long-lasting, if
rarely-used, building material. The
mortar-rich mixture results in a
featureless grey building surface with
a dreary, if not forlorn, aspect that may
be appropriate for a Methodist Church
in a land of Baptists.

The building shown above is the First Methodist Church

of Elberton, Georgia.

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f. Carboniferous Sandstone

Sandstone at Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire.

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g. Stone Mountain Granite

Stone Mountain is a prominent
rounded hill of granite amidst the
otherwise gently rolling landscape east
of Altanta (see below). It is one of
several bodies of granite intruded into
the Piedmont about 300 million years
ago, as the African margin of
Gondwana and the southeast margin of
Laurentia (ancestral North America)
collided to form the southern
Appalachians. Erosion has removed the
surrounding metamorphic rocks into
which the Stone Mountain granite was
intruded, leaving the form of the pluton
exposed. Today, Stone Mountain is
culturally famous for a large sculpture of
Confederate heroes on its northern
face. A hiking trail climbs to its top, and
a cable car provides access as well.

The Venable Stonehenge Mansion, Atlanta, Georgia

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3 STONE STRUCTURES
a. Stone Masonry
Traditional stone masonry evolved
from dry stone stacking. Stone
blocks are laid in rows of even
(courses) or uneven (uncoursed)
height, and fixed in place with
mortar, cement or lime mixture
pasted between the stones. The
building stones are normally
extracted by surface quarrying,
drilled and split using diamond saws
or iron wedges, and then shaped
and polished according to their
requirements. The basic hand tools
used to shape stones are chisels,
mallet and a metal straight edge, but
modern power tools such as angle
grinders and compressed air-chisels
are often used to save time and
money. Stones are either shaped
(dressed) into a block, known as
ashlar masonry, or left rough and cut
irregularly, known as rubble
masonry. Mortared stone structures are less durable than dry stone,
because water can get trapped between the stones and push them apart.

Traditional stone masonry is rarely used today, because stone is

expensive to quarry, cut and transport, and the building process is labour
and skill-intensive. Instead, most modern stonework utilises a veneer of
stone (thin, flat pieces) glued against a wall of concrete blocks. This is
known as veneered stone or stone cladding.

Slipform stone structures are a cross between veneered masonry and

traditional masonry. Short forms (around 2 feet tall) are placed on either
side of the wall, to serve as a guide for the structure. Stones are placed
inside the forms with the flat face out, and concrete is then poured behind
the rocks to hold it together. Stone buildings can be constructed quickly
and easily with this method.

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b. DryStone Walls
The earliest form of stone construction is
known as dry stone, or dry stacking.
These are freestanding structures such as
field walls, bridges and buildings that use
irregularly shaped stones carefully
selected and placed so that they fit closely
together without slipping. Structures are
typically wider at the base and taper in as Seventeenth century dry stone wall at Muchalls
Castle, Scotland.
height increases. The weight of the stone
pushes inwards to support the structure,
and any settling or disturbance makes the
structure lock together and become even
stronger. Dry stone structures are highly
durable and easily repaired. They allow
water to drain through them, without
causing da mage to the stones. They do
not require any special tools, only the skill
of the craftsman in choosing and placing
the stones.
Using a batter-frame and guidelines to
rebuild a dry stone wall in South Wales UK

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c. Stone Bridges

Medieval dry stone bridge in Alby, Sweden

Stone bridge in Madison proveing grounds Dam

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d. Rock Fill Dams

Definition
ICOLD defined a rockfill dam as,
"an embankment type of dam,
dependent for its stability primarily
on rock. As rockfill dams must
contain an impervious zone - now
usually selected earth with filter
zones, comprising a substantial
volume of the dam. The term
Rockfill dam usually represents a
dam that contains more than 50%
of compacted or dumped pervious
fill. The dam is dependent for
water tightness on an impervious Rock-fill dam of Paradela, Montalegre.
upstream blanket or an impervious
core."

Like an earth dam it is composed of fragmental materials, with each

particle independent of the others. The mass stability is developed by the
friction and inter-reaction of one particle on another rather than by any
cementing agent that binds the particles together.

Advantages

• Economical - due to the use of cheap local materials.

• Suitable where the foundation conditions are not good, especially where
high hydrostatic uplift is likely to be a factor in design.

• Rockfill is particularly suitable when there is no satisfactory earth

available and when a plentiful supply of sound rock is at hand. The
rockfilling is especially adapted to construction during wet and cold
weather and permits continuous work under weather conditions that
would not permit earth or concrete construction.
• Very rapid constructions are possible with rockfill because of its
adaptability to bad weather and because the process of filling does not
have to be interrupted for rolling or other separate compaction
operations.
• The rockfill dam with an upstream diaphragm is very well adapted to
stage construction. The dam height can be increased merely by
dumping more rock behind the impervious diaphragm without interfering
with or encroaching on the reservoir. The dam is then made water-tight
by continuing the impervious face upward. The stage construction
concept is also suitable for cofferdamming, as the first part of the dam
serves as a cofferdam which protects the remainder of the foundation for
further construction.

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Types

Composite Earth and Rockfill

Central earth core

Sloping earth core

Upstream core

Rock with a thin membrane or diaphragm to hold water

Central thin
membrane

Upstream thin
membrane or deck

Unbonded or dry masonry

Dam with rubble

retaining zone

(C) Thomas, Henry H. The Engineering of Large Dams

Materials Used

Likely to be satisfactory Likely to be unsatisfactory

Granite, diorite Shale
Gneiss Slate
Basalt Schist
Sandstone Siltstone
Dense limestone Porous limestone
Dolomite Chalky limestone
Quartzite
Massive Schist

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Example of Rock fill dam; Rawal Dam

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e. Stone Pillers

Mamallapuram/Mahabalipuram - a UNESCO world heritage site. Scene of the most

awesome rock hewn monolithic temples and sculptures.

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f. Stone Arches
A stone arch consists of stones specially
cut so that the joints between stones
radiate from a common centre; the soffit
is arched and the stones bond in with the
surrounding walling.
• The individual stones of the arch
are termed voussoirs.
• The arched soffit the intrados.
• The upper profile of the arch stones
the extrados.
See figure to the right.

The voussoirs of the segmental arch are

cut with steps that correspond in height
with stone courses, to which stepped
extrados is bonded. The stones of an arch
are cut so that there are an uneven
number of voussoirs with a centre or key
stone. The key stone is the last stone to be
put in place as a key to the completion and
the stability of the arch, hence its name:
key stone.

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4 Glossary of Terms

• Mortar
Mortar is a workable paste formed by mixture of cement, water and fine aggregate
sand to bind construction blocks together and fill the gaps between them. The
blocks may be stone, brick, cinder blocks, etc. Mortar is a mixture of sand, a binder
such as cement or lime, and water and is applied as a paste which then sets hard.
Mortar can also be used to fix, or point, masonry when the original mortar has
washed away.

• Soffit
Soffit is underside of an arch.

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5 References
• Stone Structures:A List
Building with stone By Charles McRaven

• Stone Masonry
http://www.sustainablebuild.co.uk/ConstructionStone.html

• Stone Sustainabilty
http://www.sustainablebuild.co.uk/ConstructionStone.html

• Dry Stone
http://www.sustainablebuild.co.uk/ConstructionStone.html

• Different Stones
http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/BS-Main.html

Stone Structures