Building materials

Building material is any material which is used for a construction purpose.

Wood

Wood is a product of trees, and sometimes other plants, used for construction purposes when cut or pressed into lumber and such as boards, planks and similar materials. It is a building material and is used in building just about any type of structure in most climates. Wood can be very flexible under loads, keeping strength while bending, and is incredibly strong when compressed vertically. There are many differing qualities to the different types of wood, even among same tree species. This means specific species are better for various uses than others. And growing conditions are important for deciding quality.

Historically, wood for building large structures was used in its unprocessed form as logs. The trees were just cut to the needed length, sometimes stripped of bark, and then notched or lashed into place.

In earlier times, and in some parts of the world, many country homes or communities had a personal woodlot from which the family or community would grow and harvest trees to build with. These lots would be tended to like a garden.

Brick and Block

A brick is a block made of kiln-fired material, usually clay or shale but also may be of lower quality mud, etc. Kilns are thermally insulated chambers, or ovens, in which a controlled temperature regimes are produced. They are used to harden, burn or dry materials. Clay bricks are formed in a moulding (the soft mud method), or in commercial manufacture more frequently by extruding clay through a die and then wire-cutting them to the proper size (the stiff mud process).

Bricks were very popular as a building material in the 1700, 1800 and 1900's. This was probably due to the fact that it was much more flame retardant than wood in the crowding cities, and fairly cheap to produce.

Brickwork masonry is produced when a bricklayer uses bricks and mortar to build up structures such as walls, bridges and chimneys. (Brickwork is also used to finish openings such as doors or windows in buildings made of other materials.) Where the bricks are to remain fully visible, as opposed to being covered up by plaster or stucco, this is known as face-work.

Brickwork

Bricks are laid to expose their ends (Header bricks), or sides (Stretcher bricks). As the work progresses, the bricks are laid in rows called courses. The manner in which the bricks overlap as they are laid up is called the bond. Types of bond include English bond, Flemish Bond, and Herringbone bond, but the most common type of brickwork seen these days is the simple stretcher bond, showing only the long side-surface of the brick.

Because only the outside of finished brickwork is visible, cheaper grades of brick are commonly used for the hidden parts of a wall. The thickness of brickwork is measured in units of brick. If bricks are put down end-to-end with the long side facing you (stretchers) and then another row on top, the wall thickness is half a brick.

Concrete

Concrete is a construction material that consists of cement (commonly Portland cement), aggregate (generally gravel and sand), water and admixtures.

Concrete solidifies and hardens after mixing and placement due to a chemical process known as hydration. The water reacts with the cement, which bonds the other components together, eventually creating a stone-like material. It is used to make pavements, architectural structures, foundations, motorways/roads, overpasses, parking structures, brick/block walls and footings for gates, fences and poles.

Concrete is used more than any other manmade material on the planet.

Cement

Portland cement is the most common type of cement in general usage. It is a basic ingredient of concrete, mortar and plaster. English engineer Joseph Aspdin patented Portland cement in 1824; it was named because of its similarity in colour to Portland limestone, quarried from the English Isle of Portland and used extensively in London architecture. It consists of a mixture of oxides of calcium, silicon and aluminium. Portland cement and similar materials are made by heating limestone (a source of calcium) with clay, and grinding this product (called clinker) with a source of sulfate (most commonly gypsum). When mixed with water, the resulting powder will become a hydrated solid over time.

High temperature applications, such as masonry ovens and the like, generally require the use of a refractory cement; concretes based on Portland cement can be damaged or destroyed by elevated temperatures, but refractory concretes are better able to withstand such conditions.

The water/cement ratio (mass ratio of water to cement) is the key factor that determines the strength of concrete. A lower w/c ratio will yield a concrete which is stronger and more durable, while a higher w/c ratio yields a concrete with a larger slump, so it may be placed more easily.

Agricultural Machinery