Great Wall of China

GREAT WALL OF CHINA

INTRODUCTION

        The Great Wall was originally built in the spring and autumn, and warring states defense wall of three states: Yan, Zhao and Qin. It started as dependent wall for three different states but became one great wall during Qin Dynasty. It underwent constant extensions and repair during later dynasty. It was Emperor Qin Shihuang in his effort to have the walls joined together to fend off the invasions from the Huns in the North.  The Great wall then served as China monument throughout the years.

        The mystery of the construction of the wall is amazing. It was built by great army of manpower, composed of soldiers, prisoners and local people. The construction drew heavily on the local resources for construction materials and according to the technological level of the periods. Construction was mainly rammed-earth, bricks, and stone walls. Rammed-earth wall was the earliest method of wall construction. They first field a wooden mold with clay or plaster, then compressed by pestle until it was hardened into shape, and finally laid them piece by piece to the satisfactory height and length. In dessert terrain where suitable earth was not available, sand mixed with debris and willow branch was used as a replacement. Brick wall became popular during Tang Dynasty when the technique of brick production was fully developed. But bricks those times were expensive limiting its use in the construction of city gates and nearby walls. The outside of walls were built by laying pieces of bricks while the inner walls were filled with yellow earth. During Ming dynasty, the expensive bricks became cheaper making it the primary material in building the walls. Also, during this time workers used lime mortar mixed with sticky rice juice as cementation material which proved to be very effective method. Stone walls were also made of locally found stones when walls passed through mountainous areas. Some stones were processed into necessary stone pieces and others kept their original appearance. Between stones, mortars mixed with sticky rice juice were used to securely glue them together.

        The wall is approximately 13,170 miles (21,196 kilometer) long from east to west of China. It spans across 15 regions in North China: Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Inner Mongolia, Beijing, Tianjin, Hebie, Shandong, Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai and Xinjiang The walls average height is 25.6 feet or 7.8 meters and the highest is 46 feet (14 meters). The average width of the wall is 21.3 feet (6.5 meters).

POINT OF VIEW

        In answering the case I took the project manager’s point of view in planning and taking into consideration mother nature’s interference in building the wall.

OBJECTIVE

        Solving the case will give better ideas on how to build the wall faster and stronger taking into consideration mother nature’s way of hindering the completion of the project.

PROBLEM

        Weather has a significant impact on the progress of a construction project just like in construction of Great Wall of China that took years to complete. It underwent many obstacles one of the obstacles is the weather condition. Mother Nature hinders fast and concrete construction of the wall.