Building Materials

While talking about building materials, it will be better to recall the history of the development of human civilization. The use of building materials starts from the beginning of the Neolithic period when man learned to make weapons of stones, metal ore, arrows etc to kill the animals for food.

These early men of stone age used to live in the natural caves. Due to the increase in the population, they feel scarce of the food. By learning the process of growth of the plants, he tried to plant the seeds of the plants. For digging the land those early men used pointed stones, tree trunks and entered the agricultural age.

Regular attacks of the wild animals lead those early men to think about their own shelter as the cave became quite unsafe. He used stone walls, wooden and grass roofs to make the shelter.

Now, after about 15 thousand years, we live in the jungle of the concrete. We have developed thousands of such materials, which made our lives easy.

1. The introduction of semiconductors in the field of electronics heavily reduced the size of the computer.
2. The use of the fiberglass and other composites made the revolution in the field of aerospace.
3. Ceramics such as tiles, bricks, sanitary tiles, mosaic tiles etc increase the aesthetic value of the buildings.

Rapid growth in the use of such material and an increase in their development in quality was essentially possible due to the diagnostic study of the different properties of the materials.

A successful civil engineer is who possess in-depth knowledge of engineering materials.

So, civil engineering building material is an essential part of the science and technology. The selection of the appropriate material in the construction activity depends upon the knowledge of the properties of the materials, physical and chemical composition, method of manufacture, durability and handling methodology.

Types of Building Materials

Different types of materials are required for different types of engineering structures and other industrial purposes.

The use of particular civil engineering material is governed by the characteristics and properties of that material.

Also Read: Mechanical Properties Of Materials