Adobe is a building material made from earth and organic materials. Adobe is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of earthen construction, or various architectural styles like Pueblo Revival or Territorial Revival. Most adobe buildings are similar in appearance to cob and rammed earth buildings. Adobe is among the earliest building materials, and is used throughout the world.
Concrete is a composite material composed of aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement that cures to a solid over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most widely used building material. Its usage worldwide, ton for ton, is twice that of steel, wood, plastics, and aluminium combined.
Masonry is the craft of building a structure with brick, stone, or similar material, including mortar plastering which are often laid in, bound and pasted together by mortar. The term masonry can also refer to the building units themselves.
Building material is material used for construction. Many naturally occurring substances, such as clay, rocks, sand, wood, and even twigs and leaves, have been used to construct buildings and other structures, like bridges. Apart from naturally occurring materials, many man-made products are in use, some more and some less synthetic. The manufacturing of building materials is an established industry in many countries and the use of these materials is typically segmented into specific specialty trades, such as carpentry, insulation, plumbing, and roofing work. They provide the make-up of habitats and structures including homes.
Rammed earth is a technique for constructing foundations, floors, and walls using compacted natural raw materials such as earth, chalk, lime, or gravel. It is an ancient method that has been revived recently as a sustainable building method.
A concrete block, also known as a cinder block in North American English, breeze block in British English, concrete masonry unit (CMU), or by various other terms, is a standard-size rectangular block used in building construction. The use of blockwork allows structures to be built in the traditional masonry style with layers of staggered blocks.
Natural building is the construction of buildings using systems and materials that emphasize sustainability. This in turn implies durability and the use of minimally processed, plentiful or renewable resources, as well as those that, while recycled or salvaged, produce healthy living environments and maintain indoor air quality. Natural building tends to rely on human labor, more than technology. As Michael G. Smith observes, it depends on "local ecology, geology and climate; on the character of the particular building site, and on the needs and personalities of the builders and users."
Autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC) is a lightweight, precast, cellular concrete building material, eco-friendly, suitable for producing concrete-like blocks. It is composed of quartz sand, calcined gypsum, lime, portland cement, water and aluminium powder. AAC products are cured under heat and pressure in an autoclave. Developed in the mid-1920s, AAC provides insulation, fire, and mold-resistance. Forms include blocks, wall panels, floor and roof panels, cladding (façade) panels and lintels. It is also an insulator.
Fireproofing is rendering something resistant to fire, or incombustible; or material for use in making anything fire-proof. It is a passive fire protection measure. "Fireproof" or "fireproofing" can be used as a noun, verb or adjective; it may be hyphenated ("fire-proof").
Lime mortar or torching is a masonry mortar composed of lime and an aggregate such as sand, mixed with water. It is one of the oldest known types of mortar, used in ancient Rome and Greece, when it largely replaced the clay and gypsum mortars common to ancient Egyptian construction.
An earth structure is a building or other structure made largely from soil. Since soil is a widely available material, it has been used in construction since prehistoric times. It may be combined with other materials, compressed and/or baked to add strength.
A compressed earth block (CEB), also known as a pressed earth block or a compressed soil block, is a building material made primarily from an appropriate mix of fairly dry inorganic subsoil, non-expansive clay, sand, and aggregate. Forming compressed earth blocks requires dampening, mechanically pressing at high pressure, and then drying the resulting material. If the blocks are stabilized with a chemical binder such as Portland cement they are called compressed stabilized earth block (CSEB) or stabilized earth block (SEB). Typically, around 3,000 psi (21 MPa) of pressure is applied in compression, and the original material volume is reduced by about half.
Rastra is a registered tradename for a particular insulating concrete form (ICF) construction system, Rastra created the name Insulating COMPOUND Concrete Form (ICCF), used to make walls for buildings. It is one of the earliest such products, first patented in 1965 in Austria. Rastra is in production since 1972, and is composed of concrete and Thastyron. Thastyron is a mixture of plastic foam and cementitious binder that is composed of eighty-five percent recycled post consumer polystyrene waste that is molded into blocks and panels.
Copper slag is a by-product of copper extraction by smelting. During smelting, impurities become slag which floats on the molten metal. Slag that is quenched in water produces angular granules which are disposed of as waste or utilized as discussed below.
Alternative natural materials are natural materials like rock or adobe that are not as commonly used as materials such as wood or iron. Alternative natural materials have many practical uses in areas such as sustainable architecture and engineering. The main purpose of using such materials is to minimize the negative effects that built environments can have on the planet, while increasing the efficiency and adaptability of the structures.
Structural engineering depends on the knowledge of materials and their properties, in order to understand how different materials resist and support loads.
Concrete is produced in a variety of compositions, finishes and performance characteristics to meet a wide range of needs.
Concrete has relatively high compressive strength, but significantly lower tensile strength. The compressive strength is typically controlled with the ratio of water to cement when forming the concrete, and tensile strength is increased by additives, typically steel, to create reinforced concrete. In other words we can say concrete is made up of sand, ballast, cement and water.
Creep and shrinkage of concrete are two physical properties of concrete. The creep of concrete, which originates from the calcium silicate hydrates (C-S-H) in the hardened Portland cement paste, is fundamentally different from the creep of metals and polymers. Unlike the creep of metals, it occurs at all stress levels and, within the service stress range, is linearly dependent on the stress if the pore water content is constant. Unlike the creep of polymers and metals, it exhibits multi-months aging, caused by chemical hardening due to hydration which stiffens the microstructure, and multi-year aging, caused by long-term relaxation of self-equilibrated micro-stresses in the nano-porous microstructure of the C-S-H. If concrete is fully dried, it does not creep, but it is next to impossible to dry concrete fully without severe cracking.
Foam concrete, also known as Lightweight Cellular Concrete (LCC) and Low Density Cellular Concrete (LDCC), and by other names, is defined as a cement-based slurry, with a minimum of 20% foam entrained into the plastic mortar. As mostly no coarse aggregate is used for production of foam concrete the correct term would be called mortar instead of concrete; it may be called "foamed cement" as well. The density of foam concrete usually varies from 400 kg/m3 to 1600 kg/m3. The density is normally controlled by substituting all or part of the fine aggregate with the foam.
