Er A R Tuladhar - The Structural Engineer

This is how MSE walls with geotextile reinforcement works!

You can see paper towel sheets as a reinforcement in this highly informative video.

Beam-Column joint detailing of rebars at the roof of building is generally ignored. Here is a case of such mispractice in one of the multi storied building in central Kathmandu.

A modular house using concrete precast elements.

Finally The First And Last Overpass In Kathmandu!

A huge chaos and dilemma was created for this technically simplistic overpass road project. Though these kind of infrastructures are unsuitable in city landscapes; the structural and geotechnical part of the project was unnecessarily entangled supposedly due to the inefficiency of the designers or the contractors involved or much interference from the client DoR.

The precast wall panels installed at the vertical faces are not supposed to carry any kind of earth pressure. They are primarily meant to coverup the soil mass behind. The soil filling behind is self supportive due to the compressive forces generated by the geotextile grids thereby preventing the shear failure planes. These geotextile grids remains in tension however.

The stability of filling soil mass under the vehicular movement and its dynamic behavior under the seismic shaking is still a matter of concern however and will be checked within a few months of operation.

-Er A R Tuladhar (24-May-2025, 6:00 AM, Kathmandu)

Laser removal of rust deposit out of reinforcing rebars. It ensures a proper bonding to achieve full strength as per design.

A Bubble Deck Slab reducing the self weight of concrete and a cost saving technique also.

Formwork for footing base slab. Compaction is the major problem in sloping part of footing base slab and so the strength of the concrete is highly compromised making the footing vulnerable.

The abandoned administrative building in Connecticut, USA built in 1970. Glass panels rest on circular shaped RC slab base with an exceptional cantilever span.