For other kinds of building materials, see Hardware, Biology, Star formation.

Concrete and metal rebar used to build a floor

Building material is any material which is used for a construction purpose. See this outside definition. Many naturally occurring substances, such as clay, sand, wood and rocks, even twigs and leaves have been used to construct buildings. Apart from naturally occurring materials, many man-made products are in use, some more and some less synthetic. The manufacture of building materials is an established industry in many countries and the use of these materials is typically segmented into specific speciality trades, such as carpentry, plumbing, roofing and insulation work. This reference deals with habitats and structures including homes.

Natural materials

Mud, stone, and fiberous plants are the most basic building materials, aside from tents made of flexible as basic structural components in these buildings, while mud is used to fill in the space between, acting as a type of concrete and insulation.

Some examples are the wattle and daub mostly used as permanent housing in tropical countries or as summer structures by ancient northern peoples.

Mud and clay

sod buildings in Iceland

Peoples building with mostly dirt and clay, such as cob, sod, and adobe, resulted in homes that have been built for centuries in western and northern Europe as well as the rest of the world, and continue to be built, though on a smaller scale. Some of these buildings have remained habitable for hundreds of years.

Rock

Mont Saint Michel

Dry-stone walls have been built for as long as humans have put one stone on top of another. Eventually different forms of mortar were used to hold the stones together, cement being the most commonplace now.

The granite-strewn uplands of Dartmoor National Park, United Kingdom, for example, provided ample resources for early settlers. Circular huts were constructed from loose granite rocks throughout the Neolithic and early Bronze Age, and the remains of an estimated 5,000 can still be seen today. Granite continued to be used throughout the Medieval period (see Dartmoor longhouse) and into modern times. Slate is another stone type, commonly used as roofing material in the United Kingdom and other parts of the world where it is found.

Mostly stone buildings can be seen in most major cities, some civilisations built entirely with stone such as the Pyramids in Egypt, the Aztec pyramids and the remains of the Inca civilization.

Thatch

Thatch is one of the oldest of building materials known; grass is a good insulator and easily harvested. Many African tribes have lived in homes made completely of grasses year round. In Europe, thatch roofs on homes were once prevalent but the material fell out of favour as industrialisation and improved transport improved the availability of other materials. Today, though, the practice is undergoing a revival. In the Netherlands, for instance, many of new builds too have thatched roofs with special ridge tiles on top.

Brush

Toda tribe hut

Ice

Ice was used by the Inuit for igloos, but has also been used for ice hotels as a tourist attraction in northern areas that might not otherwise see many winter tourists.

Wood

modern laminated lumber

Historically, wood for building large structures was used in its unprocessed form as logs. The trees were just cut to the needed length, sometimes stripped of bark, and then notched or lashed in to place.

In earlier times, and in some parts of the world, many country homes or communities had a personal wood-lot from which the family or community would grow and harvest trees to build with. These lots would be tended to like a garden.

With the invention of mechanizing saws came the mass production of dimensional lumber. This made buildings quicker to put up and more uniform. Thus the modern western style home was made.

Brick and Block

Brick and timber construction

Bricks were widely used as a building material in the 1700, 1800 and 1900s. This was probably due to the fact that it was much more flame retardant than wood in the ever crowding cities, and fairly cheap to produce.

Another type of block replaced clay bricks in the late 20th century. It was the Cinder block. Made mostly with concrete.

An important low-cost building material in developing countries is the Sandcrete block, which is weaker but cheaper than fired clay bricks.

Concrete

Falkirk Wheel

For a concrete construction of any size, as concrete has a rather low tensile strength, it is generally strengthened using steel rods or bars (known as rebars). This strengthened concrete is then referred to as reinforced concrete. In order to minimise any air bubbles, that would weaken the structure, a vibrator is used to eliminate any air that has been entrained when the liquid concrete mix is poured around the ironwork. Concrete has been the predominant building material in this modern age.

Concrete comes cheap and will support structures(e.g. bridges)for a long amount of time

Metal

MIT Stata Center

The lower density and better corrosion resistance of aluminium alloys and tin sometimes overcome their greater cost. Brass was more common in the past, but is usually restricted to specific uses or specialty items today.

Metal figures quite prominently in prefabricated structures such as the Quonset hut, and can be seen used in most cosmopolitan cities. It requires a great deal of human labor to produce metal, especially in the large amounts needed for the building industries.

Other metals used include titanium, chrome, gold, silver. Titanium can be used for structural purposes, but it is much more expensive than steel. Chrome, gold, and silver are used as decoration, because these materials are expensive and lack structural qualities such as tensile strength or hardness.

Glass

British Museum Great Court

Modern glass "curtain walls" can be used to cover the entire facade of a building. Glass can also be used to span over a wide roof structure in a "space frame".

Ceramics

Ceramics are such things as tiles, fixtures, etc. Ceramics are mostly used as fixtures or coverings in buildings. Ceramic floors, walls, counter-tops, even ceilings. Many countries use ceramic roofing tiles to cover many buildings.

Ceramics used to be just a specialized form of clay-pottery firing in kilns, but it has evolved into more technical areas.

Plastic

Plastic pipes penetrating a concrete floor in a Canadian highrise apartment building

Fabric

The tent used to be the home of choice among nomadic groups. Two well known types include the conical teepee and the circular yurt. It has been revived as a major construction technique with the development of tensile architecture. Modern buildings can be made of flexible material such as fabric membrained

, and supported by a system of steel cables or internal air pressure. ths soursce is mum fock

Foam

Foamed plastic sheet to be used as backing for firestop mortar at CIBC bank in Toronto.

Cement composites

Cement bonded composites are an important class of building materials. These products are made of hydrated cement paste that binds wood or alike particles or fibres to make pre-cast building components. Various fiberous materials including paper and fiberglass have been used as binders.

Wood and natural fibres are composed of various soluble organic compounds like carbohydrates, glycosides and phenolics. These compounds are known to retard cement setting. Therefore, before using a wood in making cement boned composites, its compatibility with cement is assessed.

Wood-cement compatibility is the ratio of a parameter related to the value of property of a wood-cement composite to that of a neat cement paste. The compatibility is often expressed as a percentage value. To determine wood-cement compatibility, methods based on different properties are used, such as, hydration characteristics, strength, interfacial bond and morphology. Various methods are used by researchers such as the measurement of hydration characteristics of a cement-aggregate mix [1-3]; the comparison of the mechanical properties of cement-aggregate mixes [4-5] and the visual assessment of microstructural properties of the wood-cement mixes [6]. It has been found that the hydration test by measuring the change in hydration temperature with time is the most convenient method. Recently, Karade et al. [7] have reviewed these methods of compatibility assessment and suggested a method based on the ?maturity concept? i.e. taking in consideration both time and temperature of cement hydration reaction.

References
1. Sandermann, W. and Kohler, R. (1964) Studies on mineral-bonded wood materials. IV. A short test of the aptitudes of woods for cement-bonded materials. Holzforschung 18, 53:59.
2. Weatherwax, R.C. and Tarkow, H. (1964) Effect of wood on setting of Portland cement. For. Prod. J. 14(12), 567-570.
3. Hachmi, M., Moslemi, A.A. and Campbell, A.G. (1990) A new technique to classify the compatibility of wood with cement. Wood Sci. Technol. 24(4), 345-354.
4. Hong, Z. and Lee, A.W.C. (1986) Compressive strength of cylindrical samples as an indicator of wood- cement compatibility. For. Prod. J. 36(11/12), 87-90.
5. Demirbas, A. and Aslan, A. (1998) Effects of ground hazelnut shell, wood and tea waste on the mechanical properties of cement. Cement Concrete Res. 28(8), 1101-1104.
6. Ahn, W.Y. and Moslemi, A.A. (1980) SEM examination of wood-Portland cement bonds. Wood Sci .13(2), 77-82.
7. Karade SR, Irle M, Maher K (2003) Assessment of wood-cement compatibility: A new approach. Holzforschung, 57: 672-680.

Modern Industry

Modern building is a multibillion dollar industry, and the production and harvesting of raw materials for building purposes is on a world wide scale. Often being a primary governmental and trade keypoint between nations. Environmental concerns are also becoming a major world topic concerning the availability and sustainability of certain materials, and the extraction of such large quantities needed for the human habitat.

Virtual materials

Certain materials like photographs, images, text may be considered virtual. While, they usually exist on a substrate of natural material themselves, they acquire a different quality of salience to natural materials through the process of representation.

See also

• Materiality (architecture)
• List of building materials
• Phase I Environmental Site Assessment
• Architectural engineering
• Architecture
• Building diagnostics
• Underwriters Laboratories
• Deutsches Institut für Bautechnik

External links

• Building Materials Directory from Underwriters Laboratories
• Sustainable/Alternative Building Materials Directory
• Environmental Building Materials Directory
• Wood/Cement Product Treatise
• Society of the Plastics Industry Homepage
• Ceramics Industry Treatise on Construction Applications
• Glass Industry Website
• American Institute of Steel Construction Homepage
• American Concrete Institute Homepage
• Concrete Block Association
• The Cement Association of Canada
• Canadian Wood Council Homepage

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