Records show that there is high risk in civil engineering projects. Many accidents happen day by day and many people die. To minimize the number of accidents in this field one has to work in security.

After the success of a day of  security last year, vinci-construction decided to celebrate for a week (21/10/2013 – 28/10/2013) this year. Vinci construction aims of descending its frequency rate from 12 to 5 till the next year. In this week before starting the work everybody is asked to present in the gathering and interaction is made on different topics between workers and the managers. And different proposition are made to improve the efficiency of materials used, ways to minimize risk etc.  The main objective of this gathering is to minimize the accident of any type.

To work in security one has to be equipped with individual protection equipments. Individual protection equipments means a security shoes with a metallic toe to protect feet, a safety helmet, glasses, a security jacket, ear protection set and gloves.

In each project of Vinci construction a zone is separated for the circulation inside the project area which is called a “red carpet”. Either the whole circulation is colored in red or the two red parallel lines so as to emphasize the circulation zone. The red color was chosen as it matches with the logo and it is clearly visible. A red carpet is the zone where stocking is strictly prohibited; the public are not allowed to enter the site.

The working place must be surround by security railing otherwise they are not allowed to work.

Realizing the importance of security in the construction projects. Vinci-Construction set it’s slogan “if you don’t choose to work in security you don’t work with us“. Which is very purposeful and which has unique objective that everybody is expected to return his home as he came in morning.

Building is always exposed to fire risk. Fire may occur due to electrical malfunction, leakage of combustible materials, daily use of fire etc. Keeping this risk in mind today’s buildings are designed to tackle those problems. Structures are designed with degree of quantitative classification like ½ hour, 3/4 hour, 1h, 1h1/2, 2h, 3h, 4h, 6h etc. This means the structure can hold that much time in order to evacuate the zone. The building norms impose constrain on fire safety. For example EUROCODE (Code of construction for Europe) divides the structure in different types like Residential building, public access building, High building, Installation classified for environmental protection, Basic nuclear installation etc and impose constraints accordingly.

The main aim of the code is to avoid propagation to avoid destructive fire , to facilitate evacuation and to facilitate easy exit to save live. To do so, the building is divided in compartments and each compartment has to have the safety exit. And because when on fire, the electricity is not available autonomy fire exit signals will help to evacuate the zone.

Eurocode also defines the types of construction materials like materials for ceiling (M3 , combustible medium inflammable; fire reaction 21 MJ/m²), wall materials(M2, combustible less inflammable, fire reaction 2 MJ/m²) and similarly for floor materials (M3, incombustible) . To avoid spread of fire in whole structure a fire protection product is applied in the outer surface of concrete as in picture.

As I talked above a fire resisting door is mandatory in the corridor which contains metal plate so as to block the fire propagation as in picture.

In the project I am working for it has more than that. It has a fire sprinkler system. It is a system of an active fire protection consisting of a water supply system which pumps water in case of fire alarm. The water will be stored on the roof and used when necessary. It works on the same way as in irrigation system.

To be able to work in height we may have so many options like scaffolding, hanging on rope or elevator work platform. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Working by hanging on rope can be the cheapest but it would be useful for only small tasks and whenever team has to work together this seems to be risky and annoying.
Scaffolding can be the good option as it holds working place and security regions. But in this project I am going to talk about, it has a prefabricated aluminium blocs to put on for the facades and scaffolding will not allow easily to put on the blocks. The third and the best option is elevator work platform. However it is a bit expensive but from the point of view of security it is the best option. Security is the big question in the construction industry today so in this project elevator work platform is used to pile the prefabricated blocs. Below are some photos of elevator work platform, facades and the team member including me who is in charge of this task.

In this 21st century the comfort has been essence in the modern life. To live in comfort we need  favorable conditions like fresh air circulating inside the building, good average temperature irrespective of the weather etc. New laws on consummation of energy oblige us to make maximum utilization of energy provided  i.e. we may not be able to buy as much energy as we wan, it is costly on the other hand.

Now we started building low energy consuming housing which is only possible by proper insulation of building and using solar panels.  Insulating in general sense means to make a structure water-proof. We must know solar energy released by sun in a day is quite enough for the world for entire year.To gain a title like of high environmental quality structure we should pay very a careful attention to such subjects which demands a careful study on related topics.

In addition to insulate a structure  we need to cover a structure by a materials which has a good thermal resistance. In market we can have so many materials. However in limited budget we can’t do whatever we like because it demands a good calculation behind. If we use less insulation, condensation can take place inside the structure (which means there is big difference of temperature between two surfaces) as we can see in the classical buildings. A proper choice demands a calculation. However the commonly used insulation materials are rock wool( laine de roche in french), glass wool (laine de verre in french) ,extruded polystyrene (fr: polystyrène extrudé) etc.  Below is one example of rock wool used in building insulation.