Building Construction Materials Research Articles

Effect of core-shell ratio on the thermal energy storage capacity of SiO2 encapsulated lauric acid

Lauric acid (LA), an eco-friendly fatty acid, is used as phase change materials (PCMs) and tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) as the precursor solution of SiO2 for sol-gel process. In the present study, various core-shell ratios are taken for the microencapsulation of LA with SiO2. The effect of different core-shell ratios on the chemical, structural, and thermal properties are studied by different techniques such as Fourier transform-infrared spectroscope (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). FT-IR, XRD, XPS, SEM, and TEM results confirmed the proper microencapsulation of LA with SiO2 shell while DSC and TGA revealed about excellent thermal stability of the microencapsulated LA. Core-shell ratios played a vital role on the microencapsulation of LA with SiO2 which affected the overall performance and structure of the encapsulated PCMs. PCMs with the highest core-shell ratio i.e., LATEOS6, exhibited the highest encapsulation ratio (92.39%), encapsulation efficiency (93.48%) as well as excellent thermal reliability even after 30 cycles of heating and cooling. These results suggested that microencapsulated LA would be a promising material for thermal energy storage as well as construction building materials (CBMs) to solve mass concrete problems.

Comparison of Compressive Strength and Wood Powder Absorption and Coffee Grade Aggregate With Uniform Grade

In Indonesia, there are many industrial wood processing factories that have a lot of waste or sawdust that has not been utilized. One solution to the utilization of sawdust waste is to use it as a construction material. Wood sawdust is waste obtained from the results of wood craftsmen who use machines or manually. Utilization of wood waste is now used as material for making cabinets and gardening. One solution to the utilization of sawdust waste is to use it as a construction building material. Food industry waste can cause problems in handling because it contains carbohydrates, proteins, fats, mineral salts and also chemical residues used in processing and cleaning. Waste that is increasing and piling up will smell and become a source of microbial development which in the end will also cause various kinds of diseases, so that food industry waste needs good handling. Coffee grounds are also food industry waste produced from processing coffee beans. As with other food industry waste, coffee grounds waste has the potential to be used as a substitute material for cement.

A review of the thermal and acoustic properties of materials for timber building construction

A review of the thermal and acoustic properties of materials for timber building construction

Intellectual Tool to Compute Embodied Energy and Carbon Dioxide Emission for Building Construction Materials

Every material has its capacity to consume energy called embodied energy (EE) and to emit CO2 during the manufacturing process. The estimation procedure of EE and CO2 emission is predominantly based on the existing case examples from various nations across the globe. There is an impressive aperture in instances from developing nations concerning an appraisal of embodied energy and emission of CO2 for used building construction materials. The available tools are also not much user friendly and hence not everyone is capable to use it easily. From this point of view, this research aims to develop an intellectual tool to find out embodied energy and CO2 emission for building materials. This research presents a model for estimation of EE and emission of CO2 (E4-Model) for various building materials used in construction. This research focuses on construction of building in the Indian Construction Section. For the assessment of EE and CO2 emission, the concept of Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) is used and all the values are by weight of material. From the experimental analysis, it is observed that the estimation accuracy of the system is more than 99.62% for small as well as large buildings. The research concluded that the use of CNN is far better than the artificial neural networks in terms of system response time and complexity to estimate the EE and CO2 emission rates. In the research proposed E4-Model is applied and developed using the concept of deep learning and curve-fitting toolboxes within MATLAB Software. The actual emission for all the tested projects were found to be lesser than the estimated emission. The tool developed using CNN proved to work with high accuracy.

Identification and quantification of additives in bituminous binders based on FTIR spectroscopy and multivariate analysis methods

Bitumen is a crucial building material in road construction, which is exposed to continuously higher stresses due to higher traffic loads and changing climatic conditions. Therefore, various additives are increasingly being added to the bitumen complicating the characterisation of the bituminous binder, especially concerning the reuse of reclaimed asphalt. Therefore, this work aimed to demonstrate that the combination of Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy with attenuated total reflexion (ATR) technique and multivariate evaluation is a very well-suited method to reliable identify and quantify additives in bituminous binders. For this purpose, various unmodified and modified binders, directly and extracted from laboratory and reclaimed asphalts, were investigated with FTIR-ATR spectroscopy. The determined spectra, pre-processed by standard normal variate (SNV) transformation and the determination of the 1st derivation, were evaluated using factor analysis (FA), linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and partial least square regression (PLSR). With this multivariate evaluation, first, a significant model with a very high hit rate of over 90% was developed allowing for the identification of styrene-butadiene copolymers (SBC), ethylene-copolymer bitumen (ECB) and different waxes (e.g. amide and Fischer-Tropsch wax) even if the additives do not show any additional peaks or the samples are multi-modified. Second, a quantification of the content is possible for SBC, ECB, and amide wax with a mean error of RMSE ≤ 0.4 wt% and a coefficient of determination of R2 > 90%. Based on these results, FTIR identification and quantification of additives in bituminous binders is a very promising method with a great potential.

Development and characterization of viticulture by-products for building applications

This work deals with the manufacture of new bio-based materials for building insulation from viticulture by-products, and potato starch. Four types of aggregates were used separately: grape pomace, stalks, skins, and crushed stalks. The starch/aggregate mass ratio was set at 20% starch. The samples obtained were characterized in terms of density, thermal conductivity, compressive and bending strength, and sound absorption coefficient. The thermal conductivity of the different composites was found to be ca 0.075 W/(mK). Compression tests showed a high compression resistance from the starch/stalk, grape pomace/starch, and crushed stalk/starch composites. The high sound absorption coefficient indicated that these materials can be use as sound absorbers, especially the starch/grape pomace composite with a measured absorption coefficient of 0.42 for a low thickness of 20 mm only. Overall, grape by-products/starch composites seem to have good thermal, mechanical, and acoustic performance for use as insulation materials in public building construction.

Comparative sustainability evaluation of two engineered wood-based construction materials: Life cycle analysis of CLT versus GLT

The environmental emissions and energy from construction activity and building materials contributes significantly to a building's sustainability. Previous research dealing with wood or engineering wood's energy requirements compared to reinforced concrete and steel structures has shown that embodied energy and embodied carbon is significantly lower in wood-based construction. This study has assessed the environmental impact and costs of glued laminated timber (GLT) or cross-laminated timber (CLT). Hardwood and softwood variants of both GLT and CLT were considered. We compared the life cycle costs (LCC) of these alternatives to discover the lowest cost. The comparative results indicated that GLT has higher emissions in Global warming potential (GWP), Terrestrial Ecotoxicity (TE), Land Use (LUP), and Ozone layer depletion (OLD), while CLT has higher impact in Human-Toxicity Potential (HTP), Fossil Depletion Potential (FDP). The results indicated that using CLT significantly reduces embodied energy by 40%. However, a comparison of costs showed that CLT is 7% more expensive than GLT. Establishing which material performs best based on environmental and economic criteria thus required further analysis. Thus, the multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) method was applied. This showed that CLT manufactured with softwood is the most sustainable choice among the alternatives considered. This study's findings are important for aggregate level decision making of different wood materials for residential buildings.

Implementation of capillary penetration coefficient on water sorptivity for porous building materials: An experimental study

Neutron radiography is used to study the relation between water sorptivities (s) and capillary penetration coefficient (k), and to reveal impacts of sealing method on the water absorption process in brick samples. Except for the ends, the samples' outer surfaces were coated with a polymeric waterproofing slurry. While the samples were absorbing water, neutron radiography images were recorded continuously. Analyses of the acquired images, as well as published results for construction building materials, were used to determine water sorptivities (s), capillary penetration coefficient (k), and capillary porosity (θc). The results showed that s is proportional to k in a direct manner, and that θc is the proportionality constant. It was found that samples coated with a polymeric waterproofing slurry absorb water more quickly than samples coated with acrylic paint.

Life cycle assessment of earthen materials for low-cost housing a comparison between rammed earth and fired clay bricks

PurposeAlthough the use of diverse types of bricks as the primary construction materials has been considered for many years, vernacular earthen materials are also widely used for construction with low potential environmental impacts in developing countries. In this study, the life cycle of two types of building materials for wall building is investigated.Design/methodology/approachFor this purpose, life cycle carbon emissions (LCCO2) are compared and embodied energy calculation for rammed earth and fired clay bricks as two construction materials. The complete construction chain using rammed earth, as a modern norm, and fired clay bricks, as the most common construction materials in buildings, is investigated in this research.FindingsStudies on the constructions in Kashan city in the north of Isfahan province, Iran, as a case study, showed that replacing the fired bricks with rammed earth would reduce the CO2 emissions up to 1,245 kg/ton and 4,646 MJ/ton (i.e. more than 95%) of the embodied energy. It also shows that the choice of building materials should be important for building practitioners to consider the environmental impact.Originality/valueThis paper provide life cycle assessment of building materials. The findings of this study help builders and owner to choose sustainable building materials.

Sensitivity analysis of transient heat and moisture transfer in a bio-based date palm concrete wall

Hygrothermal mathematical models are commonly used to describe heat and moisture transfer in porous and bio-based building construction materials. This allows to evaluate their thermal insulation capacity, as well as their ability to regulate external climatic conditions and ensure indoor comfort for inhabitants. In this paper, a sensitivity analysis is performed on Kunzel's model, while it is applied to simulate the hygrothermal behavior of a wall structure made of a new bio-based building material (cement composite including date palm fibers). In a first part, the effects of finite variations of material properties/boundary conditions on the model's outcome are investigated. In a second step, specific transfer modes are neglected in the model, in order to study their influence on the numerical predictions. The results of this parametric study show that special attention should be paid to few parameters (heat capacity and density for heat transfer, sorption isotherm and water vapor resistance factors for moisture transfer) at the expense of others. Uncertainties on these influent parameters may result in large error accumulation, especially when modeling the moisture transfer process. Furthermore, initial boundary conditions and sensors position appear to be possible sources of discrepancies in the calculated RH profiles. Finally, the pure conduction model is found to provide good estimation of the temperature profiles compared to the full model, whereas liquid transfer must always be taken into account in the model to ensure accurate RH predictions through a bio-based date palm concrete wall.

Use of sustainable green materials in construction of green buildings for sustainable development

Sustainability in building construction is now major priority as it is having various advantages. The global trend is moving towards the sustainability and hence sustainable building construction has prime importance in the construction industry. Due to huge urbanization activities lot of environmental issues are originating. Building construction using sustainable materials will lead to reduction in the pollution and also improve the existing situation of environmental problems. This paper discusses the use of recycled design products in the construction industry. Affordable sustainable housing projects made from locally available construction materials are in high demand. It safeguards the natural ecosystem, economy, and energy. As a result, the report considers unique products that could fulfil the minimum requirements for sustainable building construction. The primary goal of this research is to do a comparative review to determine the viability of using recycled building materials instead of conventional building materials.

Mechanical Properties and Toxicity Risks of Lead-Zinc Sulfide Tailing-Based Construction Materials.

The leaching residue of the lead–zinc sulfide tailing (LRT) is the only residue generated from the tailing leaching recovery process; it is a typical hazardous material for its high heavy-metal contents and high acidity. Due to the large output of LRT, and because its main components are Ca, Si, and Al, the preparation of building construction materials with LRT was studied. The results showed that when the LRT addition is less than 47%, with the ordinary Portland cement (OPC) and fly ash (FA) added and the curing conditions appropriate, the strength values of the tested specimens meet the M15 Class of the autoclaved lime sand brick standard (GB/T 16753-1997). The carbonization coefficient and drying shrinkage of the specimen were 0.79 and smaller than 0.42, respectively. As the SEM, TG, and XRD analysis have shown, the LRT can chemically react with additives to form stable minerals. The heavy metal contents that were leached out well met the limits in GB5085.3-2007. Based on the high addition of the LRT, the good strength and lower heavy metals were leached out of the prepared test specimen, and the tailing could be reused completely with the leaching recovery and the LRT reuse process. LRT can be used to replace OPC, allowing more sustainable concrete production and improved ecological properties of LRT.

Study on Quality Control of Concrete Raw Materials in Road and Bridge Construction

The main material of concrete is a construction building material composed of water and mineral mixture and cement and chemical additives in the corresponding proportion and below the standard. In the process of making concrete material, slurry and cement are needed to mix, then cement slurry and sand are mixed into mortar according to the corresponding proportion, and aggregate is added to mortar to form concrete building material. In the process of concrete preparation, the most important construction link is mixing, which needs to be fully stirred to make the performance of concrete meet the construction needs. In the process of concrete construction technology development, both mix ratio and production technology have become more and more mature, but there are still some problems, which have an impact on the quality of concrete. Therefore, this paper discusses the quality control of concrete raw materials according to the construction process of road and bridge.

Improvement on flame retarding performance: preparation and characterization of water-based indoor paints with addition of boric acid

The design of a fire-protection of the construction materials for buildings has become necessary to reduce the risk of a serious fire with the increasing population and increasing urbanization. During a fire, to extend the time of interfering with a building, water-based indoor paints have received attention; however, the performance and flame retardant property of these paints need to be improved. In this study, boric acid, which is the product of boron, was chosen as an additive for a flame retardant to develop this performance of the prepared paints due to its advantages such as a low toxicity, odorless, colorless, and corrosion resistance. In order to investigate the effect of different weight ratios of boric acid, water-based indoor paints have been prepared with the addition of 5%, 10%, and 20% (w/w) of boric acid. In addition, the synergistic effect of boric acid and melamine on the flame retarding performance of the prepared paints was also investigated. The physicochemical properties, flammability characteristics and thermal properties were analyzed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), limiting oxygen index (LOI), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), respectively. The results demonstrated that the characteristic peaks of boric acid were observed in the prepared paints. The prepared sample (P6) including 20% (w/w) of boric acid showed a more significant enhancement in flammability behavior from 24% to over 55% than that of containing melamine and boric acid. Moreover, the results of the thermogravimetric analysis demonstrated that increasing the amount of boric acid showed more effectiveness on the property of flame retardancy among the prepared paints due to the result of the mass-loss rate. In conclusion, the prepared indoor paint, P6, has served as a suitable option to halogen-based paints for the enhancement of the flame retardancy of the water-based indoor paints.

Generation and properties of the new asphalt binder model using molecular dynamics (MD)

Asphalt binder is the main material for road pavement and building construction. It is a complex mixture composed of a large number of hydrocarbons with different molecular weights. The study of asphalt binders and asphalt concretes from a molecular perspective is an important means to understand the intricate properties of asphalt. Molecular dynamics simulation is based on Newton’s law and predicts the microscopic performance of materials by calculating the intra- and intermolecular interactions. The asphalt binder can be divided into four components: saturates, aromatics, resins, and asphaltenes (SARA). A new molecular model of asphalt was proposed and verified in this study. Eight molecules selected from the literature were used to represent the four components of asphalt. The AMBER Cornell Extension Force Field was applied in this study to model building and the calculation of properties. The density of the asphalt model was calculated and compared with experimental results for validity verifications. The results show that the purposed model can be used to calculate the microscopic properties of the asphalt binder because the density of the model is close to the real value in the field. Besides, the proportions of different molecules in the model were adjusted to predict the relationship between the asphalt binder density and the hydrocarbon ratios and heteroatom contents of the molecular model. Moreover, the glass transition temperature of the asphalt binder model is predicted by the simulation of the heating process. The range of the glass transition temperature is determined by calculating the relationship between specific volume and temperature, and the calculated range is close to the experimental value.

Flexural performance of ferrocement based on sustainable high-performance mortar

The selection of the building material for economic and sustainable construction requires understanding the material behavior. Therefore, this research studied the behavior of eco-friendly high-performance mortar(HPM) that is used for producing ferrocement. The experimental program has been divided into four phases. The first phase involved the investigation of optimal non-reinforced HPM which contains 20 % of Supplementary Cementitious Materials (SCM). The second phase studied the behavior of HPM reinforced with different percentages (0.5 %–1.5 %) of natural sisal fibers(NSF). The third phase exhibited the performance of ferrocement, produced from the optimal non-reinforced and reinforced HPM, under bending stresses. The last phase introduced the economic feasibility of research work. The results showed that using silica fume and metakaolin by 9% and 11 % by weight of cement, respectively, improved the properties of HPM better than other percentages used. The flexural strength, flexural toughness, splitting tensile strength, and elastic modulus increased with adding of NSF in contrast to flowability, compressive strength, and UPV. Moreover, the flexural behavior of ferrocement units improved with the incorporation of NSF. The cost analysis between conventional reinforced concrete and ferrocement panels as a roofing system showed that the initial cost and a dead load of roof decrease by about 27 % and 83 % respectively.

Sand Sampling for Testing

Fine aggregate (Sand) is a necessary material used in concrete construction purposes, it’s naturally available and it’s widely used around the world for different parts of construction in any building mainly for filling the voids between gravel. Sand gradation is important for different composite materials, and it gives good cohesion when compared with coarse sand that provides strength for the building. Therefore, sand is necessary to be tested before it is used and mixed with other building materials in construction and the specimen must be selected carefully to represent the real material in the field. The specimen weight must be larger than the required weight for test. When the weight of the sand sample increases the approximate precision desired increases. In this study, an approximated multilinear function for Fuller’s curve on the logarithmic scale was used to simulate the fine aggregate (sand) numerically. In order to get the effect of different samples, a stochastic analysis was done by employing 100 realizations of specimens, has been conducted to study the effect of sampling on sieve analysis and the root mean square error (RMSE) for the variation between desired and sampled curves. Then the results were compared with available specifications recommendations.

Effect of Water-Cement Ratio on Mechanical Properties of Rubberized Fly Ash Concrete

One of the efforts to reduce the dependency of concrete production on natural resources along with carbon reduction is by utilizing recoverable materials as concrete constituents such as crumb rubber from scrap tires and fly ash from industrial waste. This study aims to investigate the mechanical properties of rubberized fly ash concrete which utilized crumb rubber and fly ash as a replacement for a proportion of fine aggregate and cement, respectively. Crumb rubber was used to replace 5 and 10% fine aggregate while fly ash was used to replace 10% OPC by weight. Three different water-binder (w/b) ratio, 0.55, 0.50 and 0.45, were used. The concrete specimens were prepared and tested for their density, compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, and flexural strength. Result gathered from the experimental works show a reduction in properties of rubberized concrete when compared to conventional concrete. By using a lower w/b ratio, the reduction tends to decrease and rubberized concrete with 0.45 w/b ratio recorded comparable density and strength to that normal concrete. The use of a lower water-binder ratio in concrete mix improved the strength of rubberized fly ash concrete equivalent to the normal concrete, allowing for usage of green materials in real building construction.

Research on Green Building Materials in Civil Engineering Management System

The development of the real estate industry has increased the application market capacity of green building materials, and the demand for green building materials has also greatly increased. The formation of the concept of pollution-free, energy-saving and environmentally friendly housing by consumers has gradually changed the choice of traditional civil engineering construction materials and Cost control. The application and promotion of a large number of green building materials in civil engineering construction has laid a material foundation for the construction of energy-saving and environmentally friendly buildings in China. The article is based on this, using inorganic raw materials potassium silicate, sodium silicate, and silica sol as base materials, add a certain proportion of organic silicon modified styrene-acrylic emulsion, and then add titanium dioxide, kaolin, talc, nano-titanium dioxide and other fillers and coating film-forming additives to prepare water-based inorganic coatings. The test results show that the prepared coating has good physical and chemical properties, environmental protection performance, and fire resistance performance, and can be widely used in the construction industry with obvious social and economic benefits and environmental protection benefits.

Recycled cotton/polyester and polypropylene nonwoven hybrid composite materials for house hold applications

ABSCRACT Renewable raw materials and recyclable thermoplastic polymers provide attractive eco-friendly quality as well as environmental sustainability to the resulting recycled cotton/polyester and polypropylene fiber reinforced nonwoven composites. We studied the possibility of using recycled polypropylene (PP) for the production of nonwoven composites based on recycled cotton (RC) and recycled polyester (RP) as reinforcements. This research focuses on optimizing the manufacturing techniques and testing of both air-laid nonwoven and melt-bonded recycled nonwoven composite materials. Each series of experimentation was to be combined with a specific amount of copolymer chemical agent, the recycled post-industrial polypropylene powder, and recycled fiber. The physical and mechanical properties can be tested in accordance with ASTM standards. The results exposed that physical properties can be determined for both conditions like 24 h soak and 2 h boil. The air-laid materials have more properties than melt extrusion. The air-laid and melt- bond has deviation likewise coupling agent can change the properties. The results obtained report the possibility of exploitation of recycled PP for the production of recycled cotton/polyester reinforcements based on nonwoven composites with good mechanical characteristics to utilize as construction building materials in housing systems.