Alternative Building Materials Research Papers (original) (raw)

Environment pollution is the most concerned issue in today’s world. Construction Industries is one of the largest sectors to pollute the environment. In Bangladesh, burnt clay brick is the most commonly used building material. Which produce a significant amount of greenhouse gasses and also it destroys a huge amount of agricultural land every year. For a better environment alternative sustainable building material is a must. Sustainable Building Material can be defined as the product that uses less energy and less impact on the environment during its lifetime. The study appraises alternative building materials and technologies as a walling material. The researcher use river dredged soil and cement to produce this alternative material. Compressed Stabilized Earth Block (CSEB), Sand Cement Hollow Block, Thermal Block all the material does not produce any harmful gasses during its production. Though a small amount of cement is used where they do not affect the environment as much as firebrick does. Moreover, the use of river dredged soil in these alternative materials save the precious agricultural topsoil. Use of locally available raw material also makes the alternative material cheaper than the conventional firebrick. Transformation from a conventional method is not easy so proper initiative must be taken. Also, the new technology should thoroughly be investigated to minimize future risk when using in the field.

After water, the next biggest crisis across the globe is of power. There is a constant search for resources to produce energy; a trivial yet, ignored approach is of harvesting the Sun. This paper proposes an approach of economic and efficient use of PV panels, with a case study of a 2 BHK house roof and MSRIT college campus building. The case study includes the analysis of solar energy harnessed, the money invested, the time of recovery, profit obtained and reduction in carbon emissions. This paper also presents market trends, indicating a decrease in price, increasing efficiencies and utilization of photovoltaics. The results, demonstrates a wide accessibility to the masses and its feasible nature on larger scales, which will be able to power the future.

- by Rishi Rai
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- Alternative Building Materials

Over usage of natural resources for construction of buildings has caused many environmental problems. Hence mainstream requirements of building projects such as cost effectiveness and rapid construction should be achieved while ensuring that the impact on the environment is also minimum. In this context, it is beneficial to use recyclable or renewable materials as building elements. This paper describes a successful adoption of the combination of such systems in a rapid building construction project in Sri Lanka. The building envelope consists of two and three storey steel portal frames, walling system based on compressed straw panels, upper floor with precast concrete slab panels supported on a steel framework, and ceiling made from compressed straw panels. The successful application of these systems indicates the possibility to adopt them in the future for rapid, cost effective and sustainable building construction.

The issue of continual poor project performance in the construction industry remains unresolved, and there is the need for improvement. In view of improving project performance, this study aims at investigating the frequent causes of errors in construction contract documents. A mixed method (questionnaire survey and interview) research approach was used for the study. The respondents for the study (selected with two-stage stratified-random sampling technique) consist of 86 consulting and 98 contracting firms that have been engaged in building projects that have more than one floor between 2012 and 2015. Fifty-one (51) interviews were also conducted with contractors, project managers and consultants on the projects they were involved on and that provided further necessary information for the study. The tools that were used for the analysis of this study include descriptive (sums, frequency and percentages) and inferential (t-test) statistics. The study found that the causes of errors in contract documents comprise of frequent design changes by clients, lack of adequate time to prepare documents and design management experience among others. Based on the findings, it was concluded that the causes of errors in contract documents vary from one state to the other. It was also found that there is a difference in the causes of errors in contract documents based on types of building, services rendered by construction organisations and states in South West, Nigeria. However, there is no significant difference in the causes of errors in contract documents based on procurement method except where there is incomplete documentation or contracting organisations have overlapping activities. The study recommended that the errors identified should always be prevented from occurring if cost and time overrun are to be minimized. Also since most of the causes identified are related to consultants, it was recommended that all designs should go through quality assurance process.

Low cycle fatigue is an important design consideration for large steel structures and metallic machine components. Accurate prediction of fatigue endurance is essential to design the elements subjected to fatigue. The design guidelines given in codes of practices are applicable only to simple shapes and laboratory experimental verification is costly. Therefore simulation using finite element software is becoming popular. This paper demonstrate successful coupling of Abaqus/FEA and fe-safe software in predicting the uni-axial fatigue behaviour of a stainless steel specimen. The simulated results are verified against experimental results available in literature. Sensitivity to surface roughness and material model were examined.

- by Abasiama Sam
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- Alternative Building Materials

In recent years Environment pollution is the most concerned issue. Awareness growing to save the environment. In Bangladesh, burnt clay brick is the most commonly used building material. Which produce a significant amount of greenhouse gasses and also it destroys a huge amount of agricultural land every year. Concerning the issue of scientist searching for sustainable and eco-friendly building material. Compressed Stabilized Earth Block (CSEB) give the opportunity of energy efficient, eco-friendly, agriculture friendly and sustainable development. It does not produce any harmful gasses during production. In this study, river dredged soil used to produce CSEB, so it also helps to save the agricultural land. CSEB have been prepared with the different composition of cement, sand and river dredged soil. The compressive strength of different blocks is measured to find the suitable composition to produce CSEB and also to compare among them to find out the optimum composition.

- by ishtiak mahmud and +1
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- Sustainable Development, Alternative Building Materials, Stabilized Compressed Earth Blocks
- by chandra sabnani
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- Alternative Building Materials

—This study investigates the potential usefulness of periwinkle shell as an alternative replacement of coarse aggregate in concrete work. The mechanical properties of concrete with fine and coarse aggregates components fully and partly replaced with lateritic sand and periwinkle shell was investigated. A working sample of one hundred and thirty five concrete cubes of 100mm dimensions were produced and cured in water for 7, 14 and 28 days. The fine aggregates and coarse aggregates were replaced with lateritic sand and periwinkle shells respectively at 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 100%. The mix proportions adopted for this work was 1:1½:3, 1:2:4 and 1:3:7 with water/cement ratio of 0.65. the results indicates that through partial replacement the concrete composed of up to 20% of lateritic sand and periwinkle shell developed a higher compressive strength for the curing ages of 7, 14, and 28days independent of the mix ratios than concrete containing lateritic sand and periwinkle shell at 100% full replacement.The study therefore recommends that 20% lateritic sand and periwinkle shell replacement for fine and coarse aggregate in concrete is suitable for use as low strength lightweight concrete.

- by Isaac Taiwo and +1
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- Alternative Building Materials

There is growing trend worldwide in the research and development of sustainable low-cost, atoxic, renewable and durable construction materials. Tropical countries like Nigeria are known to be the domain of vegetable fibres and other non-pyroprocessed industrial by-products that possess cementing properties (pozzolanas). Sisal fibre has emerged as reinforcing material in polymers used in civil industries and other products and has the potential to be cultivated in luxurious abundance in Nigeria. This paper reports the experimental study on use of locally sourced and processed sisal fibre as reinforcing agent in ternary of fly ash (Fa) and calcined waste crushed clay bricks (CWCCB), normal strength, OPC concrete. In this work, the physical and chemical characteristics of sisal fibre, Fa and CWCCB are obtained. The amount of OPC in the ternary mixtures was fixed at 50%, while the ratio of fine to coarse aggregate was fixed at 1:2. The mechanical performance of concrete samples in three ternary blends of Fa and CWCCB in the ratios of 20/30, 25/25 and 30/20, incorporating 3% volume fraction of 40mm average length of sisal fibres as reinforcing agent were evaluated. It was shown that concrete samples incorporating 3% volume fraction of sisal fibre and containing 30%Fa + 20%CWCCB(4F30/20), gave the best mechanical performance.

- by Olorunmeye F Job
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- Alternative Building Materials

The increasing cost and scarcity of Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) has impacted negatively on the delivery of affordable housing and infrastructural development in developing countries like Nigeria. This has led to researches in search of alternative supplementary cementatious materials that can replace and/or substitute cement in concrete production without affecting the structural integrity of the concrete. Therefore, this study investigated the suitability of Pigeon Pea Pod Ash as a partial substitute for Portland cement in the production of Concrete. Mix proportion of 1:2:4 and at water cement ratio of 0.6 for the production of concrete. Seventy-five cubes were cast. Results from the chemical Strengths of the cast concrete cubes were determined at 7, 14 and 28 days of curing in water The results show an increase in strength from 10% replacement to 20% replacement of cement with the pigeon pea pod ash however the strength decreased with increase in percentage replacement of pigeon pea pod ash more than 20% (30% and 40% replacement levels). From the study, the blend CPA 20 exhibits the maximum compressive strength of 20.0N/mm 2 at 28 days of hydration which was close to the control cubes CPA 0 with Fcu of 22.80N/mm 2 and the target strength of Fcu 21.0N/mm 2. The study concludes that Pigeon Pea Pod Ash is a pozzolana and that it use up to 20% replacement of OPC in concrete production to attain adequate strength. Furthermore, the study concludes that inclusion of PPPA into concrete production does not affect the structural integrity of concrete in terms of strength as the compressive strength continued to increase with age of curing in water. The study therefore recommends concrete with optimum Pigeon Pea Pod Ash (PPPA) of 20% as suitable for structural elements while concrete blend of Pigeon Pea Pod Ash (PPPA) greater than 20% replacement of cement are considered not suitable for use in structural elements due to low strength exhibited.

- by Paul Zakka
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- Alternative Building Materials

- by Olorunmeye F Job and +2
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- Alternative Building Materials

Admixture-Binder interaction plays vital role in concrete both at fresh and hardened state. The behavior of chemical admixture varies in accordance with the binder content. The study primarily aims at examining the compatibility of blended cement (OPC and Fly ash) of different proportions with chemical admixture. Experimental investigation was done for mortar (1:4 and 1:6) as per the optimum dosage obtained from compatibility study. It was observed that most of the blended mixes were showing optimum flow at dosage of 3%. However, the flow time increased with increase in Fly Ash content. Strength tests on mortar confirmed satisfactory results for both 1:4 and 1:6 mortar whereas 1:4 mortar showed higher strength due to the higher binder content compared to 1:6.

- by abdul razak
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- Alternative Building Materials

The current study investigates the dynamic thermal performance of building envelope materials for commercially available conventional and locally made alternative materials. The adoption of alternative materials (i.e., low carbon and low embodied energy material) over conventional materials in construction industry is poor. These materials lag behind in adoption by construction industry, due to the limited information on the performance of such materials. The envelope materials considered for study are two conventional material (Autoclaved Aerated Concrete blocks and Table moulded bricks), and two low carbon low embodied energy material (Flyash blocks and Cement stabilized soil blocks). The Dynamic thermal performance study has been carried out as per UNI EN ISO 13786-2008 standard.
The results reveal a better performance of alternative materials compared to conventional material for the building envelope in tropical conditions. Based on thermal performance of alternative materials, suitable guidelines could be evolved to integrate these materials in the building envelope.

- by Balaji NC and +1
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- Low Carbon Materials, Energy Efficient Building Envelope Systems, Embodied Energy, Building Envelope

The issue of continual poor project performance in the construction industry remains unresolved and there is need for improvement. In view of improving project performance, the study aims at investigating the frequent causes of errors in construction contract documents. The survey research design and mixed research methods were used for the study. The respondents for the study consist of 86 consulting and 98 contracting firms that have been engaged on building projects that is above one floor between 2012 and 2015. Fifty one (51) interviews were also conducted on contractors, project managers and consultants on the projects they were involved and can equally provide necessary information for the study. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 20) was used for the analysis of the study. The study found that the frequent causes of the errors in contract documents are frequent design changes by clients, lack of adequate time to prepare documents and design management experience am...