Often enduring more than a hundred years, brick masonry is testimony to the traditional collaboration between architect, engineer, and mason. Beauty and historical significance are often the most compelling features of brickwork.
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Apart from mechanical damage, water ingress is the most detrimental force to concrete structures. Buildings the world over are failing far earlier than construction designers had planned. In some cases, this results in high maintenance costs unforeseen by building owners.
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Insulated metal panels (IMPs) have become increasingly popular in the last decade as a lightweight, prefabricated, total building enclosure system. Their strong, stiff, metal skins provide excellent water and air control. However, the joints between panels and the transitions to other components—especially windows, doors, roofs, and foundations—demand close attention.
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Pavement engineers, who deal with many of the same issues faced in the concrete-floor field, do not talk much about joint stability or differential movement. Instead, they talk about load-transfer efficiency—a related but distinct property. Whenever a load is applied to one side of a joint, it creates stress on the loaded side. Load transfer occurs when some of that stress gets transferred to the unloaded side. Load transfer efficiency (LTE) is a measure of how well the joint shifts stress to the unloaded side.
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A stable joint—one that does not move excessively when a load is applied near it—is obviously better than an unstable one. However, the best methods to make joints stable are not always agreed upon. For example, one floor designer might call for stout, closely spaced dowels, while another also chooses dowels, but makes them thinner and spaces them farther apart.
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