Пособия / Л.П. Даниленко, Ю.Ю. Сильман TECHNICAL ENGLISH FOR CIVIL ENGINEERS AND STRUCTURAL DESIGNERS

Ex. 2. Give the English for:

Механическая прочность, дробленый камень, бетонные фундаменты, водонепроницаемый, огнестойкий, стены, пол, крыша, не требовать особого ухода, заливать бетон, быстро застывать (схватываться), обычный бетон, легкий бетон, железобетон, тяжелый бетон, готовый бетон.

Ex. 3. Give the Russian for:

Density, heat insulating capacity, a fine powder, a ceiling slab, dense concrete, prefabricated concrete, foam concrete, aerated concrete, precast concrete, prestressed concrete, high-early- strength concrete.

Ex. 4. Complete the following sentences.

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Ex. 5. Fill in the gaps with a missing word(s).

1.Concrete is water-proof,fire-resistantandcomparatively…

2.Heatinsulatingcapacityiscontrolledbythecoefficientof…

3.… is hydraulic cement which can harden under water.

4.Almost all houses, factories, skyscrapers stand on concrete …

5.…protect underground telephone wires and electric power lines.

6.…makes possible the production of concrete building materials.

7.The kind of concrete with the least weight is called …

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Task. Read and translate the text using the dictionary.

TEXT 3a. DURABILITY, WORKABILITY, AND

WATERPROOFNESS

Durability of any material is that property which indicates whether the material will remain the same or not, even though it may be subjected to loads sufficient to destroy it. Durability of concrete is affected by:

alternate wetting and drying;

freezing and thawing (промерзание и оттаивание);

heating and cooling (нагревание и охлаждение);

capillary water;

the dissolving of the cement by certain acids (кислоты);

chemical reaction between certain constituents of aggregates and the alkalies (щелочь) in high-alkali Portland cement.

Workability (обрабатываемость) is that property of freshly mixed concrete which is measured in terms of (с точки зрения) convenience of placing, handling, and finishing. The degree of necessary workability will depend on the nature of the work being done.

There are a number of factors affecting workability:

cement

water

aggregate

mixing

admixtures

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Waterproofing (водонепроницаемость) of concrete is desirable in order to increase the durability of it. Concrete that absorbs water is easily subjected to disintegration (распад, разрушение), owing to the wetting and drying action or to freezing and thawing while wet. Waterproofing of concrete may be accomplished at any of the following ways:

special waterproof cement;

admixtures;

richer mixtures and careful gradation of the aggregate;

small amounts of mixing water;

proper curing;

application of bituminous coatings to the surface.

EXERCISES

Ex. 1. Give the definitions for the following terms.

Durability

Waterproofing

Workability

Ex. 2. Look through the text 3a and give theanswer.

1.Whatfactorsinfluencethe durabilityofconcrete?

2.Whatfactorsaffectworkability ofbuildingmaterial?

3.How canbuildersmake waterproofingofconcrete?

4.Is wateranenemyofconcrete?Why?

5.Are acidsdangerousforconcrete?

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Task. Translate the text using the dictionary at the end of the book.

TEXT 4. METALS

There are many types of metals used for building. Metals began to be used as building materials not so long ago. It requires a great deal of human labor to produce metals, especially in the large amounts needed for the building industry. Before the beginning of the 19th century metals played

little structural role in the process of construction. They served mostly for joining parts of buildings. The ancient Greeks and Romans used bronze for joining slabs of stone. It was only in the 18th century when the first all-metal structure was built in Europe. It was a cast-iron (чугун) bridge across the river Severn, and two centuries after its construction it still carries heavy modern traffic.

In the first half of the 19th century cast iron and wrought iron (ковкий чугун) were introduced for industrial construction in Europe and North America. The famous Eiffel Tower in Paris was constructed of wrought iron in 1889. By that period several steel frame skyscrapers had already been built in the United States. That was the beginning of a new era; a new highly useful and popular construction material had been born and introduced into building industry.

All metals, except mercury (ртуть), are hard and fire resistant. They have some common properties: metals can be pulled

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(вытягивать), forged (ковать), and melted (плавить). They are also good conductors of electricity.

Metals are divided into two groups: ferrous (черный металл) and non-ferrous (цветной металл). Iron, steel and their various alloys belong to the group of ferrous metals, while the main component of non-ferrous metals is not iron. Ferrous metals are commonly used for construction as supporting members. Steel and other ferrous metals serve as reinforcement.

Steel has come into general use with the development of industry. Its manufacture requires special equipment and skilled labour. Structural steel is alloys of iron, with carefully controlled amounts of carbon (углерод) and various other metals such as manganese, chromium (хром), aluminium, vanadium, molybdenum, and copper. The alloying elements control grain size and hence steel properties giving high strength, increased ductility and fracture toughness (прочность на разрыв). Highcarbon steel is used to manufacture hard drawn wires (тянутая проволока) for cables and tendons (трос, канат).

Steel is the best material for reinforcing concrete. Steel reinforcement is a steel bar or mesh (сетка) of steel wires used as a tension element in reinforced concrete structures to strengthen and hold the concrete in tension. It’s impossible to imagine modern construction without steel reinforcement. It is widely used for many different types of structures and components of structures including slabs, girders, beams, columns, frames, foundations etc.

Copper is a valued building material because of its advantageous properties: corrosion resistance, durability, low thermal movement, light weight, recyclability and wide range of

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finishes. Copper is included into roofing, domes, spires (шпиль), vaults (свод),wallcladding,jointsandindoordesign elements.

Aluminium is a considerably new building material. For a long period it was considered to be rather expensive since its production required the use of electric power. Because of its relatively high cost, aluminium was not very popular as a building material till the middle of the twentieth century. But now the situation is absolutely different. Aluminium and aluminium-based alloys are extremely popular and are widely used in various forms for construction purposes.

The advantages of aluminium, compared with other popular metals, are its high strength combined with lightness. Highpurity aluminium (about 99 % pure) is soft and ductile but its great disadvantage is that it is not strong enough. At the same time it has high corrosion resistance and it is used in construction of buildings as bright foil (фольга) for heat insulation, roofing, exterior and interior architectural ornamentation.

Other metals used for structural purposes include chrome, gold, silver, and titanium. Their disadvantages are: high cost, not enough tensile strength and hardness. Therefore they are mostly used for decoration.

EXERCISES

Ex. 1. Complete the following sentences.

1.Metals as a new building material were introduced in construction in…

2.The onlymetal whichisn’thardandfire-resistantis…

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3.The two main groups of metals are…

4.The example of a ferrous metal is…

5.The example of a non-ferrous metal is…

6.Structural steel is made of…

7.Steel reinforcement is…

8.The advantages of copper as a building material are…

9.The production of aluminium was expensive for a long period of time because…

10.The disadvantages of aluminium are…

Ex. 2. Choose the correct variant.

1.Metal is…

a)the most ancient building material

b)a rather new building material

2.Producing metals …

a)is an easy process

b)requiresqualifiedlaborandspecialequipment

3.The first all-metal structure was built in…

a)ancient Greece

b)in Europe in the 18th century

4.The Eiffel Tower in Paris was built of…

a)wrought iron

b)steel

5.Metals are…

a)good conductors of electricity

b)bad conductors of electricity

6.The main component of all ferrous metals is…

a)bronze

b)iron

7.The best metal to reinforce concrete is…

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a)аluminium

b)steel

8.Strength and hardness are the structural properties of…

a)gold and silver

b)steel and iron

Ex. 3. Make upsentences using the words given below.

1.Bronze, slabs, Greeks, joining, of, Romans, stone, the, used, and, ancient, for.

2.Fire-resistant, metals, mercury, hard, all, are, and, except.

3.Light-weight, are, corrosion-resistance, main, copper, durability, of, advantages, the.

4.Popular, a, was, the, century, its, material, 20th, high, aluminium, not, building, until, because of, cost, the, middle of.

5.Titanium, mainly, decoration, gold, for, used, silver, are, chrome.

Ex. 4. Ask your group-mates the following questions.

1.Why did metals play little structural role in building industry before the 19th century?

2.What was the first all-metal structure and what kind of metal was used for its construction? Does it exist now?

3.When and where did the mass production of iron start?

4.What are the common properties of metals?

5.What are the main groups of metals? What are they used in construction for?

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6.Where is steel used in modern construction?

7.Why is copper considered to be a valuable building material?

8.What are the advantages of aluminium and its alloys and the sphere of their applying in construction?

Task. Look through the text and give a short summary.

TEXT 5. BUILDING STONE

Stone belongs to one of the oldest building materials used by man. Almost all famous buildings of classic times, of the medieval and Renaissance (Ренессанс, эпоха Возрождения) periods and of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were erected of stone. The art of making any structure in stone is called stone masonry*. It is characterised by many properties. It has mechanical strength, compactness, porosity, sound and heat insulation and fire-resistance. Building stone ranks in importance with steel as a building material. Stone is used for the foundations, walls, and steps of buildings, for the supports of piers* and bridges, and for finishing and decorating all types of structures.

Crushed stone* is mainly used as an aggregate of concrete and in road construction. Crushed stone is quarried stone crushed into small pieces suitable for such uses as the surfacing of roads and industrial construction.

Dimension stone* is stone in natural blocks or slabs cut in definite shapes and sizes. Builders expect good dimension stone to last at least a hundred years. The best dimension stone has

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