Masonry Terminology

Construction terminology can be confusing, especially where masonry is concerned. Many terms unique to masonry construction can leave laypeople scratching their heads. In this post, we make sense of some of the terminology used within the masonry industry.

Masonry is simply an assemblage of modular units, which are usually either solid bricks or hollow blocks. Units are typically bound together with mortar made from sand, water, and cement. Other options for assembling the units also exist, such as dry-stacked masonry, where no binder is used, interlocking masonry, where the units fit together like puzzle pieces to provide mechanical connection to each other, and glued masonry, where units are bound together with a thin layer of adhesive.

A layer of a wall that is one unit thick is called a wythe, though the term leaf is also sometimes used. A row of units along the length of the wall is known as a course. Horizontal mortar joints are called bed joints and vertical mortar joints are called head joints. 

Masonry units can be laid in six different orientations, each of which has been given a name to differentiate them: stretcher, header, rowlock, soldier, sailor, and shiner. Stretchers are laid with the long, narrow side facing out and the long edge horizontal. Soldiers are also laid with the long, narrow side facing out, but the long edge is vertical. Headers are laid on their broad side, like stretchers, but have the small face exposed. Rowlocks also have the small face exposed but are laid on the long, narrow side.  Sailors and shiners are laid with the broad side exposed and the long edge vertical for sailors or the long edge horizontal for shiners.

Hollow blocks are typically laid as stretchers, occasionally as headers, and should never be laid as sailors or shiners. Solid bricks are also typically laid as stretchers, but headers, rowlocks, and soldiers are also pretty common, especially in older buildings. Sailors and shiners are rare in solid brick masonry, but have been used in the past to produce some interesting brickwork patterns. Masonry is strongest when loaded as a stretcher or header, so rowlocks, soldiers, sailors, and shiners are typically used for decorative purposes where the strength demand is low.

After the bricks have been laid, the mortar joints have to be finished. Mortar joints can be finished in several different ways to produce different aesthetics, as illustrated below.

The most common joints are concave joints (occasionally called bucket handle joints), which provide a finished look without negatively affecting the overall strength or ability to manage moisture. Flush joints work well for masonry that will be coated with parging or plaster because flush joints aren’t as likely to show through the coating as it ages. Raked joints are made by raking out some of the mortar before it hardens. This emphasizes the edges of the units and can create a good aesthetic. However, raked joints are generally weaker and more susceptible to moisture intrusion than most other joints. Extruded joints, also known as weeping joints and occasionally called skintled joints, are really just unfinished joints. The extrusion is formed from mortar that’s squeezed out of the joint when the brick is laid in place. Some people like extruded joints, claiming they give the brickwork a rustic look, while others feel extruded joints just look messy and unprofessional.

We looked at some of the different terminology used within the masonry industry, including the six orientations of a brick and nine different ways to finish mortar joints. In a follow-up post we will take a closer look at some of the many different patterns masonry can be constructed in.

References

BIA. (1975). Technical Note 2: Glossary of Terms Relating to Brick Masonry. Brick Industry Association, Reston, VA.

Brunskill, R. W. (1997). Brick Building in Britain. Gollancz, London, UK.

Hatzinikolas, M. A. and Korany, Y. (2005). Masonry Design for Engineers and Architects. Canadian Masonry Publications, Edmonton, AB.

Lloyd, N. (1925). A History of English Brickwork. Antique Collectors' Club, Woodbridge, UK.

A Brief History of Ground Penetrating Radar

Light as an Electromagnetic Wave

The history of radar begins with the history of our understanding that light is an electromagnetic wave. In 1826, André-Marie Ampère discovered that an electric current generated a magnetic field. Five years later, Michael Faraday discovered that an electric field is produced by a changing magnetic field. In 1855, Wilhelm Weber and Rudolf Kohlraush conducted an experiment to calculate the ratio of electromagnetic charge to electrostatic charge from direct measurements; the ratio was calculated to be 3.107×10⁸ m/s. Only a few years before, Armand Fizeau and Léon Foucault had devised experiments to measure the speed of light, obtaining values of 3.149×10⁸ m/s and 2.980×10⁸ m/s, respectively. The significance of the discovery by Weber and Kohlrausch was not realized immediately, and for some time physicists believed it to be nothing more than a coincidence that this ratio agreed so closely with the speed of light. In 1861, James Clerk Maxwell published a correction to Ampère’s Law among his set of electrodynamic equations in On Physical Lines of Force. Ampere’s Law, in its original form, stated that a magnetic field was generated by an electric current. With Maxwell’s correction, it stated that a magnetic field was generated by a changing electric field – in essence, it was a corollary to Faraday’s Law. Starting from the equations published previously in On Physical Lines of Force, Maxwell published a mathematical derivation of the wave equation in his A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field. This derivation proved that an accelerating electric field would generate a perpendicular magnetic field (and vice-versa), which together comprise an electromagnetic wave that can propagate through empty space. Solving Maxwell’s electromagnetic wave equation for the wave speed in vacuum reveals that such a wave would travel at the speed of light. Maxwell commented on the results of his derivations and the experiments of Weber and Kohlrausch, Fizeau, and Foucault, stating:

"The agreement of the results seems to show that light and magnetism are affections of the same substance, and that light is an electromagnetic disturbance propagated through the field according to electromagnetic laws" (Maxwell 1865).

Maxwell’s equations are at the foundation of our current understanding of optics, electrodynamics, and electric circuits. Maxwell’s electromagnetic wave theory also explains why light travels fastest in vacuum and must slow down when passing through a medium. The electromagnetic wave theory and Maxwell's equations form the theoretical foundation of all radar applications.

Theory is put into Practice

Maxwell had predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves, but it was Heinrich Hertz who demonstrated that radio waves existed and could be transmitted, refracted, and reflected in the same manner as visible light. Alexander Popov, in 1897, while testing his apparatus to detect lightning strikes, observed interference when a ship had passed. Though Popov reported that the phenomena could possibly be exploited to detect objects, he did not explore this further. In 1904, Christian Hülsmeyer used radio waves to detect the presence of ships, but not their range or bearing. In September of 1922, U.S. Navy researchers Albert Taylor and Leo Young, like Popov before them, observed that a passing ship interrupted their radio communication. Taylor and Young realized the potential application and suggested radio transmitters and receivers be used to detect ships in low visibility. However, it wasn’t until Lawrence Hyland observed in 1930 that an airplane flying overhead interrupted radio communication did the U.S. military take serious interest in detecting objects using radio waves. The acronym RADAR, which stands for RAdio Detection and Ranging, was coined in 1934.

Walter Stern, possibly aware of the work of Hülsmeyer, developed the first ground penetrating radar (GPR) and used it to survey a glacier in Austria in 1929. The use of radio waves for subsurface mapping was essentially forgotten for several years, until a few airplanes belonging to the U.S. Air Force gave false altitude readings and the pilots crashed while trying to land on ice in Greenland. The renewed interest sparked investigations into the use of radar to map ice, groundwater tables, and subsoil properties. A GPR system essentially the same as the one used by Stern in 1929 was developed to investigate the lunar subsurface for the Apollo 17 mission. GPR first became commercially available in 1972, and since then there has been much research into the technology and its applications. Today, GPR is used in a wide variety of non-destructive, subsurface mapping applications, including: 

• detecting buried explosives
• locating possible archaeological dig sites
• locating buried pipes
• locating embedded reinforcing steel
• inspecting pavements
• mapping soil strata
• mapping contaminant plumes
• mapping groundwater levels
• mapping ice thicknesses

References

Annan, A. P. (2009). Electromagnetic principles of ground penetrating radar. In Ground Penetrating Radar: Theory and Applications. Edited by Jol, H. M. Elsevier, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Cassidy, N. J. (2009). Electrical and magnetic properties of rocks, soils and fluids. In Ground Penetrating Radar: Theory and Applications. Edited by Jol, H. M. Elsevier, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Clarke, G. K. C. (1987). A short history of scientific investigations on glaciers. Journal of Glaciology, special issue: 4-24.

Crease, R. P. (2008). The great equations: breakthroughs in science from Pythagoras to Heisenberg. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, New York.

Guarnieri, M. (2010). The early history of radar. IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine, 4(3): 36-42.

Jol, H. M. (2009). Preface. In Ground Penetrating Radar: Theory and Applications. Edited by Jol, H. M. Elsevier, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Keithley, J. F. (1999). The story of electrical and magnetic measurements: from 500 B.C. to the 1940s. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., New York, New York.

Kostenko, A. A., Nosich, A. I., and Tishchenko, I. A. (2001). Radar prehistory, Soviet side: three coordinate L-band pulse radar developed in Ukraine in the late 30's. Proceedings of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium, Boston, Massachusetts, 8-13 July 2001. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, New York, New York. 4: pp. 44-47.

Maxwell, J. C. (1861). On physical lines of force [online]. Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science. Available from http://goo.gl/nfk1Fk [last accessed 13 January 2015].

Maxwell, J. C. (1865). A dynamical theory of the electromagnetic field [online]. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 155: 459-512. doi: 10.1098/rstl.1865.0008.

Olhoeft, G. R. (1996). Application of ground penetrating radar. Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Ground Penetrating Radar, Sendai, Japan, 30 September - 3 October 1996. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, New York, New York. pp. 1-4.

Olhoeft, G. R. (2002). Applications and frustrations in using ground penetrating radar. IEEE AESS Systems Magazine, 17(2): 12-20.

Page, R. M. (1962). The early history of radar. Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers, 50(5): 1232-1236.

Stern, W. (1929). Versuch einer elektrodynamischen dickenmessung von gletshereis. Gerlands Beiträge zur Geophysik, 23: 292-333.

Young, H. D. and Freedman, R. A. (2004). Sears and Zemansky's university physics: with modern physics, 11th edition. Pearson Addison Wesley, San Francisco, California.