Introduction
From the beginning, humans have the habit of changing their surrounding, which tends to fit their needs. This has made use of all natural materials, with the passage of time and technology development, have been transforming into different products by manufacturing processes of increasing sophistication. The raw natural materials are often called raw materials, while products made from them are called construction materials.
Step 1
However, in construction processes, many raw materials are still used with little or no pretreatment. In these cases, these materials are also considered building materials themselves and are greatly used for trade construction.
Step 2
Features
Construction materials are used in large quantities, which must come from abundant and cheap raw materials. Therefore, most construction materials are made from materials with high availability as clay, sand or stone.
Step 3
Another requirement essential is that the entire manufacturing processes consumes little energy and is not overly elaborated. This is the reason that the trade construction of glass is considerably more expensive than that of the brick, stemming both from the raw materials, which ranges from the common materials of sand and clay in their respective order.
Step 4
Trade construction materials have the common feature of being durable. Depending on use, they must also satisfy other requirements such as mechanical strength, hardness, resistance against fire as well as ease of cleaning.
Step 5
Generally, any construction material simultaneously meets all the needs required: the discipline of construction is in charge of combining materials to adequately meet those needs.
• Material properties Physical properties:
• Density: the ratio between the mass and volume
• Hygroscopicity: ability to absorb water
• Coefficient of thermal expansion: ownership of increase or decrease in size depending on the temperature
Tips
• Thermal conductivity: ease with which a material allows the passage of heat
• Mechanical properties: To know the tests that are performed at the factory for trade construction has a material behavior at extreme forces.
• Mechanical strength: the ability of materials to support tensile, compression, torsion and bending is also a feature of trade construction.
Sources and Citations
• Elasticity in trade construction, and;
• Plasticity of construction material.
Regulation of trade construction
In developed countries, trade constriction materials are regulated by a series of codes and regulations that tend to define the characteristics to be met along with their scope.
The purpose of this regulation of trade construction is twofold: firstly ensuring minimum quality standards in construction, and secondly allows the architects and engineers to know more precisely the behavior and characteristics of the construction materials that are being used. The international standards used to regulate trade construction materials are the standards of ISO.
Nomenclature of construction materials
Since, the products must pass quality control criteria before they can be used, all the materials used in construction today are supplied by companies. For most common materials there are many factories and trademarks. However, if the manufacturer has a significant market share, it is common that the generic name is replaced by the dominant brand. Nor is it unusual for certain products, either by being more specific, minority, or recent, are only supplied by one manufacturer. In these cases, there is always a generic name for the trade construction material, which then receives the name or brand that sells.
