The Importance Of Building Materials

Introduction

Although in the 20th century building materials was displaced for many applications by steel and concrete, it remains of great importance for load bearing walls in low and medium rise buildings and for internal walls and cladding of buildings where the structural function is met by one or other of these newer materials. The market for building materials may be divided into housing and non-housing sectors, the latter including industrial, commercial and educational buildings in addition to a wide variety of buildings used for administrative and recreational purposes. There is also a limited use of building materials for infrastructure, e.g. for retaining walls. In all sectors there is a significant requirement for building materials in the repair and mainte- nance of existing buildings.

Discussion

For certain applications the low tensile strength of building materials is a limiting factor in situations where considerable lateral forces have to be resisted. building materials can be used to overcome this limitation in buildings in seismic areas and generally where nonload- bearing panels are subjected to substantial wind loads. Walls of cellular or T cross-section are particularly suitable for large, single cell buildings where the adoption of such walls is greatly extended by post-tensioning. Building materials wall construction has a number of advantages the first of which is the fact that a single element can fulfil several functions including structure, fire protection, thermal and sound insulation, weather protection and sub-division of space. Building materials are available with properties capable of meeting these functions, requiring only to be supplemented in some cases by other materials for thermal insulation, damp-proof courses and the like. The second major advantage relates to the durability of the materials which, with appropriate selection, may be expected to remain serviceable for many decades, if not centuries, with relatively little maintenance. From the architectural point of view, building materials offers advantages in terms of great flexibility of plan form, spatial composition and appearance of external walls for whichmaterials are available in a wide variety of colours and textures.

Complex wall arrangements, including curved walls, are readily built without the need for expensive and wasteful formwork. The nature of building materials is such that its construction can be achieved without very heavy and expensive plant. Although dependent on skilled labour for a high standard of construction, productivity has been maintained by the use of larger units, improved materials handling and off-site preparation of mortar. The advantages of building materials wall construction are therefore considerable but, as with all materials, appropriateness to the application has to be considered, assuming acceptability from the architectural viewpoint. For example, if the building materials is not to be load bearing it will be necessary to consider the implications of the weight of the building materials as it affects the supporting structure.

If the walls are to be load bearing, it will be important to ensure that their layout is consistent with overall stability and with avoidance of failure in the event of accidental damage. This implies ...