Debre Markos University

Technology Institute

Department of Construction Technology and

Management

Construction Materials

Lecture 1

Classification and Mechanical Properties of Construction

Materials
By: Ayalsew A. 2014 E.C
Contents

• Introduction of Construction

• Classifications of Construction Materials

• Nature of Construction Materials

• Testing of Materials for Mechanical Properties

1.1. General Introduction of Construction

Construction Industry:

• Construction Industry is one of the most booming industries in

the whole world.

• The repairing of any existing building or making certain

alterations in the same also comes under Construction Industry.
This industry can be categorized into three basic categories
namely :-

i. Construction involving heavy engineering practices: The

construction of large projects such as bridge, road, etc. comes
under this category.
Cont...d
ii. General construction : The construction works that involve
building of real estate ones such as residential or commercial
real estate assets, etc.

iii. Construction projects involving specialty trades:

Construction works that involve building up of specialized
items namely, electric related works, works on woods, etc.

• Construction contributes to economic development by

satisfying some of the basic objectives of development
including output generation, employment creation, and income
generation and re-distribution.
Cont...d
Main Parties in Construction Project:

• The major participants from the construction industry include

the architects, engineers, management consultants, general
contractors, heavy construction contractors, special trade
contractors or subcontractors, and construction workers, along
with the owners, operators, and users of the constructed
facility.

• Building finance and insurance agencies, land developers,

material and equipment suppliers and manufacturers.
Cont...d
• The government interacts with the industry as purchaser,
financier, regulator, and adjudicator.

• The regulatory environment within which the construction

industry operates is also important and includes, for example,
building and related codes, licensing requirements, safety
legislation, and financial institution operating rules.
Cont...d
Life Cycle of Construction Project:

• A project can be defined as a temporary undertaking work

with a specific objective as well as a definite beginning and
end or as “a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique
product or service” .

• A project life cycle can be defined as an orderly sequence of

integrated activities, performed in phases, leading to success.
Cont...d
• The following chart shows the life cycle of a projects with
different phases from project initiation to project completion
(closeout).
Project
Initiation

Project Project
Closeout planning

Project
Execution
Cont...d
Resource for construction Industry:

• For any construction Industry to be efficiently operating and

be successful the inputs or the resources should be well
known, planned and made available.

• For most of the construction projects, the resources to look

into are the following;
Human Resources / Labor or Workmen

Financial Resources / Fund

Cont...d
Information Resources

Physical Resources such as Materials, Equipment

and Other Assets like owned land.

Services (supply of water and electricity,
communication systems etc.) and Management.
Cont...d
Construction Materials:

• Material: a substance or thing from which something else can

be made. Examples: cement, brick, aluminum, soil, water.

• In engineering, materials are employed to design and build

structures or elements.

• Material Engineering: refers to the understanding and review

of properties and uses of materials commonly used in
engineering.

• Construction Materials: any material used in construction

industry. Eg: cement, soil, aggregates, asphalt, concrete, etc.
Cont...d

Selection of Construction Materials:

• satisfactory operation of the building as a whole depends on
the performance of the materials.
•The following questions show some of the main factors which
needs to be considered in choosing construction materials:
•Is the material produced locally, or is it partially or entirely
imported?
•Is it cheap, abundantly available, and/or easily renewable?
•Has it been produced in a factory far away (transportation
costs!)?
Cont’d…
• Does its production and use require a high energy input, and
cause wastage and pollution?
• Is the material and construction technique climatically
acceptable?
1.2. Classifications of Construction Materials
Construction Materials can be broadly classified based on their:
 Metallic Property
 Physical nature
 Mode of production

Based on their metallic property:

a. Metallic materials

• Ferrous metals: which the principal element is iron, as in:

steel, wrought iron and cast iron.

• Non-ferrous metals: is one in which the principal element is

not iron, as in: copper, aluminum, led, tin, zinc.
 Cont’d…

b. Non-metallic materials: cement, concrete, stone, ceramics, etc.

Based on their physical nature materials can also be divided as:

• Solid, Liquid and Gas

Materials classification based on their mode of production as:

 Naturally occurring materials. E.g.: Stone, timber
 Industrially produced materials. E.g.: cement, brick
 Materials produced at construction site. E.g.: concrete, mortar,

HCB.
Properties of Materials

• A broad understanding of properties of materials have great

practical significance.

• Generally the properties are; physical, chemical and mechanical.

Physical Properties:- are those derived from the properties of matter

or attributed to the physical structure.
 Density (the compactness of the material)m/v
 Heat conductivity
 Fire and sound resistance
 Porosity (water tightness)
 Specific Gravity (the relative density of material related to water)

s.g. = m/v of water

Cont’d…

Chemical properties: Chemical properties are those pertaining

to the composition and potential reaction of a material.
 Corrosion and Decay resistance
 Combustibility
 Toxicity
 Hardening
Mechanical Properties: it is behaviors of a materials under load.

• Selection of materials for construction purpose mainly

depends on its mechanical properties. Example; compressive,
tensile, bending, shear and torsional strength.
Behavior of Materials Under Load
• Application of external forces on a solid body in equilibrium
results in:
Internal resisting forces are developed in the body which
balance the externally applied force.
The body is deformed to varying degree.

• The intensity of the internal force is called Stress and the

deformation per unit length is called Strain.

• Stress produced upon the arrangement and direction of the

external forces may be tensile stress, compressive stress, shear
stress, bending stress, torsional stress and various combinations.
Cont’d…

•When a body, which has been deformed under the action of

external forces, is released from such action.
•The deformed bodies may or may not recover their original form
depending on the magnitude of the applied load and the elastic
property of the material that they are made out of it.
•If a body recovers the original form, it is said to be elastic. If it
fails to recover its original form, it is said to be plastic.
•A perfectly elastic body is one that fully recovers its original size
and shape after the application and removal of load.
Cont’d…

• If the deformation produced by external force does not

disappear completely, the body is said to be partially plastic.

• Most engineering materials are in part elastic and in part

plastic.

• As the magnitude of the applied load increase the

deformation increases.

• A point is reached beyond which the original form is not fully

recovered; this point is called elastic limit of the material.
1.3. Nature of Construction Materials
Interatomic Attraction of Materials:

• Atoms are the building block of elements, consist of a

nucleus surrounded by a cloud of orbiting electrons.

• The nucleus consists of positively charged protons and

neutral neutrons, and so has a net positive charge that holds
the negatively charged electrons, which revolve around it, in
position by an electrostatic attraction.

• The charges on the proton and electron are equal and

opposite.
Cont’d…

Types of bonding:

• A significant feature of the structure of atom is the number of

electrons in the outermost shell. These are called valence
electrons.

• They are important in determine the ability of an atom to

bond with other atoms.

1. Ionic Bonding:

• Ionic bonds are the result of one atom releasing electrons to

other atoms that accept the electrons.
Cont’d…

• When an atom releases an electron, the atom becomes

positively charged; the atom receiving the electron becomes
negatively charged.

• An atom which has lost or gained an electron is called ion

and the atoms are said to ionized.

• The ionic bond results from

the electrostatic attraction of

the negatively and positively

charged atoms.
Cont’d…

2. Covalent Bonding:

• Covalent bonds occur when two similar atoms share electrons

in the outer sub-shell in order to satisfy such a stable
configuration.

• The atomic orbitals of the atoms overlap and this sharing of

electrons produces very strong attractive forces between the
atoms.
Cont’d…

3. Metallic Bonding:

• Metallic bonds are the result of the metallic atoms having

loosely held electrons in the outer subshell.

• When similar metallic atoms interact, the outer electrons are

released and are free to float between the atoms.

• Thus, the atoms are ions that are electrically balanced by the
free electrons. In other words, the free electrons disassociate
themselves from the original atom and do not get attached to
another atom.
Cont’d…

• The atoms tend to pack together to give simple, high density

structures, like marbles.

• The easy movement of the electrons leads to the high

electrical and thermal conductivity of metals.
Cont’d…

Interatomic Distance of Materials:

• Atomic spacing refers to the distance between the nuclei of

atoms in a material.

• This space is extremely large compared to the size of the

atomic nucleus, and is related to the chemical bonds which
bind atoms together.

• In solid materials, the atomic spacing is described by the

bond lengths of its atoms.

• In ordered solids, the atomic spacing between two bonded

atoms is small.
Cont’d…
• In very low density gases (for example, in outer space) the
average distance between atoms can be as large as a meter. In
this case, the atomic spacing isn't referring to bond length.

• The atomic spacing of amorphous materials (such as glass)

varies substantially between different pairs of atoms.

• In this case, the average bond length is a common way of

expressing the distance between its atoms.
Cont’d…
Atomic Arrangement of Materials:

• No order: In gases, for example the atoms have no order,

they are randomly distributed filling the volume to which the
gas is confined.

• Short-range order: A material displays short-range order if

the special arrangement of the atoms extends only to atom’s
nearest neighbors (Amorphous Material/Glass)

• Long-range order: Metals, semi-conductors and many

ceramics have crystalline structure in which the special
atomic arrangement extends throughout the entire material.
Cont’d…

• The atoms form a regular repetitive, grid-like pattern, or

Lattice.

• The lattice differs from material to material in both shape and

size.

Long- Short- No order

range range
order order
2. 1. Testing of Materials for Mechanical Properties

• Mechanical tests are those used to examine the performance of

construction materials under the action of external forces.

• Mechanical tests may be classified under the following

headings: -

a) With reference to the arrangement and direction of the external

forces.

b) With reference to the rate and duration of the load Application.

c) With reference to the effect of the test on the specimen.

A. With reference to the arrangement and direction
of the external forces
Tension test: under tension test:

• The specimen is subjected to an axial tensile force

• Tensile stress is produced on cross sectional area perpendicular

to the line of action of the force.

• The specimen increases in length.

Compression test: Under compression test:

• The specimen is subjected to an axial compressive force.
• Compressive stress is produced on cross sectional area
Perpendicular to the line of action of the force.

• The specimen decrease in length.

Cont’d…

Shear test:
• Shearing stress in a specimen is
determined on cross-sectional areas parallel -to the line of action
of the external force.

Bending test: under bending test

 A specimen is subjected to forces that give rise to bending

moments.
 The resulting stresses are compressive on one side of a neutral

plane and tensile on the other side.

 Shear stresses exist through out the beam.
Cont’d…

Torsion test:
• Is an indirect test used to determine the shearing strength of
materials.
• Test specimens for torsion test are generally cylindrical shape,
solid or hollow.
B. With reference to the rate and duration of the
load application

Static test:

• Are made with gradually increasing load, such as the ordinary

tests in tension, compression tests.

Dynamic test:
• Are made with suddenly applied loads, as by falling weight or
pendulum. Such as drop impact test.

Dynamic Load Test on Piles

Cont’d…

Wear test:
• Are made to determine resistance to abrasion and impact as in
the case of paving materials.

Long-time tests:

• Are made with loads applied to the object under test for a
long period. They are used for materials such as concrete.

Fatigue test:
• Are made with fluctuating stresses repeated a long number of
times.
C. With reference to the effect of the test on the
specimen

Destructive test:
• under these test methods, the specimens are either crushed or
ruptured and made useless at the end of the test.
• Examples under this category of test are tension in steel and
compression test in concrete.

Non-Destructive test:
• These are usually used to test the strength of members of
existing structures without affecting their performance.
• Example of this test is hammer test in concrete.
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