Classical Building Materials

Classical building materials are widely used in Civil Engineering projects. Many ancient generations used fire clay and stone as building blocks. The most common building materials today include stones, concrete, plastics, bitumen, glass, wood, metals, bricks, polymers, tiles and heat resisting materials. Current research work has come up with the considerable improvement in the natural characteristics of these materials. Glasses are available in more variety as they were 50 years ago. Similarly, concrete is now available in ultra-high strengths and even blast resistant form. Recently, use of nano-technology has emerged as a rapidly growing field; success of which is also highly dependent on the basic understanding of classical building materials. Advance research work including implementation of nanotechnology may come up with further improvements in the physical and chemical properties of these materials. This chapter would focus on classical materials in detail covering their physical and chemical characteristics, usages as well as economical suitability.

Classical Building Materials

Classical building materials are widely used in Civil Engineering projects. Many ancient generations used fire clay and stone as building blocks. The most common building materials today include stones, concrete, plastics, bitumen, glass, wood, metals, bricks, polymers, tiles and heat resisting materials. Current research work has come up with the considerable improvement in the natural characteristics of these materials. Glasses are available in more variety as they were 50 years ago. Similarly, concrete is now available in ultra-high strengths and even blast resistant form. Recently, use of nano-technology has emerged as a rapidly growing field; success of which is also highly dependent on the basic understanding of classical building materials. Advance research work including implementation of nanotechnology may come up with further improvements in the physical and chemical properties of these materials. This chapter would focus on classical materials in detail covering their physical and chemical characteristics, usages as well as economical suitability.

Technological Archives of R & D Activities about Corrosion-Resistant Materials and Protective Coating Systems at High Temperatures in Japan - Historical Retrospection and Future Prospect -

In order to search for the future technological strategy about the high-temperature materials including the coating systems with superior environmental performance, historical archives have been made on the research reports of the JSPS 123rd Committee; about Heat-Resisting Materials and Alloys, for more than 50 years. According to the historical and economic backgrounds associated with a variety of the fuel utilization, the environment-resistant materials have been developed to apply skillfully against different kinds of aggressive environments. Furthermore, future prospects of the corrosion-resistant materials and coating systems were attempted from the viewpoints of both the global environment protection and the energy saving and/or new energy development which must contribute for a prevention of the global warming.

X-Ray Stress Measurement of Ni-Ai System Intermetallic Compounds

The microstructures and mechanical properties of Ni-Al system intermetallic compounds used as heat resisting materials have been investigated by many researchers[l,2], but there are few studies applying X-ray stress measurement to these materials[3]. Two problems make it difficult: One is the comparatively coarse grain size, the other is the strong preferred orientation along the direction of the solidification. Therefore, it become possible to evaluate mechanical behavior in these materials, if we can measure the residual stresses correctlv by X-rays.In this paper, Ni-25mol%AI(Ni3Al) made by the arc-melting method was employed. It consists of comparatively coarse grains and has strong preferred orientation along the direction of the solidification.