Building materials

ADVANCES IN BUILDING MATERIALS & TECHNOLOGIES

Dr. Amit Rai* & J. K. Prasad**

Introduction
Construction industry is one of the fastest growing sectors in India. Rapid construction activity and growing demand of houses has lead to the short fall of traditional building materials. Bricks, Cement, sand, and wood are now becoming scares materials. Demand of good quality of building materials to replace the traditional materials and the need for cost effective and durable materials for the low cost housing has necessitated the researchers to develop variety of new and innovative building materials. Construction materials of special requirements for the houses in different geographical region to overcome the risk of natural hazard and for protection from sever climatic conditions has also emphasised the need for development of lightweight, insulating, cost effective, durable and environment friendly building materials. This paper gives an idea about the availability of inorganic and natural fibre wastes in India. Discussed in length about various upcoming new materials based on secondary resource materials and possibility of its application in construction sectors. It also highlights the over all growth of the construction materials in last few decades and efforts made by BMTPC for the development and promotion of new building materials and technologies. Building Materials Requirement in Country Based on the projection at the national level of the needs of various building materials, namely bricks, aggregates, steel, cement, timber, etc. during the ensuing plan period and also keeping in view the existing production capacities, the shortage of building materials to take care of the needs of housing are given in the following tables 1, 2 & 3 establishing the following major points: i. There is a substantial amount of shortage of conventional and traditional building materials. ii. The cost of construction using these conventional options is registering increase, which are of the order of 15 to 18 percent. iii. These building materials are high in energy consumption and with the increasing cost of energy, this is bound to show a still upward trend. iv. The nature of materials like burnt bricks, timber also have substantial amount of environmental and ecological implications. Table 1: Break-up of Cost of Construction in Residential Housing by Materials
Items % Urban (Rs. in Million) % Rural (Rs. in Million)

1991 96
Cement Steel Timber 14.97 10.35 5.86 111239 76909 43545

1996-01
224960 155533 88060

2001-06
452748 313022 177228

2006-11
910912 629789 356576 11.72 7.87 8.13

1991 96
43872 29460 30433

1996-01
88722 59577 61545

2001-06
178561 119904 123865

2006-11
359257 241242 249212

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Brick Others Materials

14.40 29.60 75.18

107004 219952 558649

216394 444810 1123757

435509 895213 2273721

876228 1801135 4574640

25.29 25.17 78.18

94669 94220 292655

191450 190541 591836

385307 383479 1191115

775223 771544 2396477

Table 2: Projected Demand for Building Materials at Five Year Interval (1996-2001) (in
million)
Material Residential Non-Residential Price of Materials as in Jan 1992 (Rs.) 1034.97 158.72 89.70 2128.05

Urban
Cement Steel Timber Bricks 195.89 21.80 13.24 501.76

Rural
77.26 8.23 9.26 443.92

Industrial
175.22 27.40 6.71 208.76

RCC
117.99 23.69 4.24 93.77

Load bearing
99.91 19.36 5.31 94.43

Other form of construction 368.69 58.52 50.94 785.40

Table 3: Projected Shortfall/Surplus of Key Building Materials Cement & Steel for Periods 1996-2001, 2001-2006 and 2006-2011(in million tons)
Plan period Require-ment Cement Availa- Surplus/ bility shortfall 623.63 -32.39 (-4.49%) -139.67 (-13.5%) @ Surplus (+) or Shortage / year (-) Figures in parenthesis indicate percentage of surplus (+) / shortfall (-) Average per year* -6.48 (-4.94%) -27.93 (-13.5%) Require-ment Steel AvailaSurplus/ bility shortfall 104.18 +3.61 (+3.58%) +9.02 (+5.68%) Average per year* +0.72 (3.58%) +1.80 (+5.68%)

2001-06

656.02

100.57

2006-11

1034.97

895.30

158.72

167.74

Recent Developments in Building Materials Industrial waste based materials Disposal and utilisation of industrial wastes is one of the major problem in India. Rapid industrialization leads to the generation of large quantities of wastes, which poses major problem of disposal. Factors such as environment, economy, and shortage of land for disposal and the shortage of good quality of raw materials for construction make it imperative that wastes should be suitably recycled. In India there are about fifteen major industrial wastes, which have been extensively characterised and studied for its utilisation as secondary recourse materials for replacement of naturally available building material as well as for production of new building materials and components. Due to various obvious reasons implementation of the research findings are very slow. Till date fly ash, blast furnace slag, silica fume, which is mainly comes from other countries but used extensively high strength concrete, by-product gypsum and red mud are few wastes, which have been successfully commercialised for the production of new building materials. Apart from walling and roofing materials most of these wastes are also utilised as mineral admixtures for the improving the properties of cement and concrete. Table 3 gives the availability of inorganic industrial wastes in India. Table 3: Inorganic industrial wastes production in India and their potential uses
S. No. Waste Annual Generation (Mt) Potential Uses

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1. 2. 3.

Blast furnace slag Ferro-alloys slag Flyash

11 3.5 95

4.

By-product gypsum

4.0

5. 6.

Red Mud Mine tailings (zinc, copper, gold, iron)

3.5 17.0

PSC, SSC, oil well cement, aggregate, ceramics Masonry cement, blended, cement, ceramics, aggregate Cement, PPC, concrete, cellular concrete, lightweight aggregate, calcium silicate brick, clay flyash brick Cement additive, plaster, building blocks and fibrous gypsum board, special cement Cement raw material, brick and tiles, sitered aggregate Filler in concrete, calcium silicate brick, cellular concrete, clay brick and cement

Building Materials from Agricultural Wastes Indian 70 % population is still lives villages and largely dependent on agricultural production. Agro-industrialisation increased rapidly during past three decades and India found it with a growing surplus of agricultural wastes such as rice husk, jute stalks, groundnut shell, baggase, coconut husk, and pith etc (table 5). These materials are available in large quantities about 400 million ton per year and are presenting serious problems of disposal; some of them are at present being used as cheap fuel. Research and development efforts in the part few decades have resulted in the identification of four major areas such as energy, fibre, chemicals and mineral matters which hold considerable potential for commercial exploitation of agricultural residues.
Item Source Qty. (in MT/Yr.) 20 Application in Building Materials

Rice Husk

Rice mills

Banana Leaves/Stalk Coconut Husk

Banana plants Coir fibre industry

0.20 1.60

Groundnut Shell

Groundnut oil mills

11.00

Jute Fibre Rice/Wheat Straw Saw Mill Waste

Jute Industry Agricultural farm Sawmills/wood

14.40 12.00 2.00

Sisal Fibres

Sisal plantation

.023 (Asia)

Cotton Stalk

Cotton plantation

1.10

As fuel, for manufacturing building materials and products for production of rice husk binder, fibrous building panels, bricks, acid proof cement In the manufacture of building boards, fire resistance fibre board In the manufacture of building boards, roofing sheets, insulation boards, building panels, as a lightweight aggregate, coir fibre reinforced composite, cement board, geo-textile, rubberised coir In the manufacture of buildings panels, building blocks, for making chip boards, roofing sheets, particle boards For making chip boards, roofing sheets, door shutters Manufacture of roofing unit and walls panel/boards Manufacture of cement bonded wood chips, blocks, boards, particle boards, insulation boards, briquettes For plastering of walls and for making roofing sheets, composite board with rice husk, cement roofing sheet, roofing tiles, manufacturing of paper and pulp Fibre boards, panel, door shutters, roofing sheets, autoclaved cement composite, paper, plastering of walls

Rice Husk The most promising approaches to the solution of the problem of rice husk disposal fall into two basic categories. The first category includes methods for using the heating value and the silica content of the rice husk as elements in the manufacture of industrial products such as Portland cement, water-glass,

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and porous silicate structural materials. The other category includes the chemical or physical bonding of rice husk into board for architectural use. Particle Board There is a process that makes use of the unconverted rice husk, not the ash, bonded together to produce particle board for architectural purpose with attractive textural qualities. Technology for manufacturing rice husk particle board has been developed in India and commercially exploited. Banana Stalks and Leaves BMTPC initiated the research work for development of banana leaves and stalk based fibre board. Now, It is possible to produce laminated and un-laminated board using the process developed by RRL, Trivandurum. This technology is now ready for the trails for commercial production and very soon the complete pilot plant is coming up in the IPRITI Banglore for its commercial production. Jute Stalks and Sugar-Cane Tops Near Calcutta, the Banglore Jute Factory has been producing chipboard from jute stalks for a number of years. It produces soft boards, matrices and fabric for acoustic purposes. The boards are available in various thicknesses, colours and densities and in laminated form. Coconut Wastes Coconut husk fibres are about 15 to 35 cm long and consist mainly of lignin and cellulose with about 10 percent pectins, tannins and other water-soluble and insoluble substances. Fibre board from coconut husk has been developed in India. Coconut Husk and Particle Boards Tests have shown that the resin requirement for the production of particle boards from coconut husk is much less in wood particle board (0.5 per cent adhesive compared to 8 to 10 per cent in wood boards. The cost of production of particle boards from husk may be from 55 to 60 percent of that of producing such boards from wood. Coconut Fibre Boards Coconut fibre boards bonded with cashew nut glue are in production in South India. These boards have been found to be resistant to water because of the waterproofing properties imparted by the cashew nut glue. Natura Private Limited, Bangalore is one of the company which is producing large number of coconut based products. Coconut Husk and Coir Fibre Preliminary investigations carried out at the Central Building Research Institute at Roorkee, India, have shown that coconut husk and coir fibre combined with Portland cement made a strong building panel and a corrugated roofing sheet. Bagasse Bagasse, a waste of sugar cane processing, is now considered in many developing countries to be one of the most promising lingo-cellulosic raw materials. Three types of boards can be produced from bagasse fibres for use in construction: soft board, hard board and particleboard. The technology for the production of board from bagasse is known. It requires the use of adhesive such as urea-formaldehyde or phenolic resins (8-10 percent in weight), which put this material above the cost level, set for this study. Table 4: Mechanical properties of natural fibres in comparison to conventional reinforcement fibres

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Fibre

Density (gm/cm )
3

Elongation (%)

Tensile strength (MPa)

Youngs modulus (GPa)

Cotton Jute Flax Hemp Remie Sisal Coir Viscose (cord) Soft wood kraft E-glass S-glass Aramide Carbon

1.5-1.6 1.3 1.5 1.5 1.2 1.5 2.5 2.5 1.4 1.4

7.0-8.0 1.5-1.8 2.7-3.2 1.6 3.6-3.8 2.0-2.5 30.0 11.4 2.5 2.8 3.3-3.7 1.4-1.8

285-597 393-773 345-1035 690 400-938 571-635 175 593 1000 2000-3000 4750 3000-3150 4000

5.5-12.6 26.5 27.6 61.9-128 9.4-22.0 4.0-6.0 11.0 40.0 70.0 86.0 63.0-67.0 230-240

Emerging Trends in Building Materials Blended Cement

The use of blended cement is increasing world wide as they need less energy for production. The blending of well characterised flyash, blast furnace slag, red mud kiln dust with cement is practised in most countries for achieving specific modifications in the behaviour of cement as well because it reduces cost, conserve energy resources and the environment. In India use of blended cement has got the required strength through various Indian standards brought out and revised from time to time to accommodate the various research finding s and to increases the use of industrial waste in blended cement. Now as per IS 455 (1989) 2570% blast furnace slag can be used for blending in cement. For fly ash 15 35% addition is permitted In IS 1489-Part I (1991).

Ready Mixed Concrete

The ready mixed concrete (RMC) is a processed material that in a plastic and unhardened state is sold as a finished product ready for use. Unlike site mixed concrete it is manufactured in a factory and the process of ready mixed concrete results in substantial' economy as compared with present mixing practices. The use of ready mixed concrete in construction industry is well known. Now in India almost all the cement manufacturing company are also got their RMC plants. RMC is now playing a major role in energy saving by providing the desired quality of concrete mix and hence saving the cement. It is also insuring the over all improvements in the construction projects of national interest such as rail bridges dams and roads etc. Now this technology has already proved its potential and it is time that RMC should be made available to small users also to improve the over all construction quality of the houses in country.

Bio-Composites
Composite is synthetic assembly of two or more components - a filler or reinforcing agent and a compatible matrix binder or resin. These composite do not dissolve or merge completely but do act in concert. The components as well as the interface between them can usually be physically identified. The properties of interface generally control the properties of composites. They find wide application in building construction, automotive components, plants for chemical industry, sports, aerospace and electrical industry.

Construction Chemicals
The concrete admixture can be defined as material other than cement which are added in small quantity during mixing to produce one or more modifications in the properties of the concrete and mortar. The use of construction chemicals has revolutionised construction practice in the recent past. Construction chemicals are being used advantageously in many

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construction projects in the country. At present, a large variety of chemicals most of them are polymer based construction materials are available in the Indian market.

Plastics
Plastic industry has undergone tremendous during the last two decades. Polymers outcast conventional materials due to their high strength to weight ratio and reduction in specific energy consumption. High corrosion resistance, ease of fabrication leading to high productivity, versatility of product design and ease of maintenance are other merits that favour plastics. On other hand, conventional materials like iron and steel corrode, wood loses strength on ageing, concrete possesses poor tensile strength and ceramics and glass are fragile. Plastics too are no exception and have their limitation like low modulus of elasticity, proneness to degradation by UV light, poor fire rating etc. R & D may soon overcome these limitations. Plastics are now playing a major role for wood substitute and because of the initiative taken by Department of Science and Technology thorough its Advance Composite Mission now large number of GRP doors are available in market and playing considerable role for preserving the forest resources. BMTPC is also playing an active role for promoting these doors and transferring the technology to the entrepreneur.

Prefabricated Building Components

In recent years, several prefabrication systems have been developed in India. At present, there are number of factories manufacturing precast concrete components in and around major cities. Of these majority have been set up with considerable public financial participation and a few under private sector. Number of large construction companies has also applied for licences for foreign collaboration for the manufacture of various types of prefabricated building components in a large scale for mass housing programme. In addition, several research organisations, consulting engineers and contracting firms and State Housing Boards and planning organisations have done considerable onsite prefabrication for housing work in India. Initiatives of Building Materials & Technology Promotion Council BMTPC has provided extensive encouragement, technical and financial assistance for the R & D projects, appropriate machine development and commercialisation of the technologies related to utilisation of inorganic and natural fibre wastes based building materials. The chief among them are: Jute fibre-red mud polymer door composite (FRPC) Bamboo based corrugated roofing sheet and flooring mat Fly ash based bricks, blocks and cellular lightweight concrete etc. Ferro cement roofing channels, doors and window farms Natural fibre composites for replacement of traditional ply wood and medium density fibre boards GRP door shutters, natural fibre roofing sheets and MCR tiles etc.

Council took a major initiatives for promotion of almost all the new materials which have come up in the last few years and taken a lead specially for the development and promotion of the waste based building materials. Red mud polymer door shutter was developed by the RRL, Bhopal with the financial and technical support of the Council. Two plants have been set up for commercial production of

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jute fibre red mud door shutters. Bamboo based corrugated roofing sheet and flooring mat is one of the wonder material developed for the North East India. It has been initially developed few years back in order to provide shelter to the local people of hilly reasons but due to its attractive finish and better mechanical and insulation properties now there is a great demand of this materials in urban area too. This product is a replacement to the asbestos and galvanised iron roofing sheet and going to play a big role as roofing material due to the large-scale ban on asbestos. Fly ash based building materials & technologies are the result efforts of large number of researchers through out the country. Disposal and utilization of these wastes were becoming a major problem day by day. BMTPC with the help of technocrats, builders and implementing agencies generated a larger awareness about the bulk and proper utilisation of the fly ash in construction materials. Machine developed by Council are playing an important role for production of fly ash based bricks, blocks and other pre fabricated building components. Council also served the purpose for development, up scaling and commercialisation of large number of other new building materials and technologies through participation and organization of various Seminars, Conferences and Training Programmes. Inhibition in use of new materials and technologies Development and commercialization of new materials and technologies do not always guarantee success in field due to variety of reasons.

The major inhibition in use of new materials and technologies are: Ignorance about the new materials/technologies Attachment to conventional material/technique by architects, engineers and users Indifference to benefits of change Lack of design data and documentation Lack of skill for using such materials Fears regarding performance, durability etc. in the absence of national standards Lack of adaptability by government agencies for new materials and technologies

Performance Appraisal Certification Scheme Standardization has played an important role in achieving these objectives. A number of materials and techniques have been standardized at different levels like, company, association, national/international level and documented as standard. However, at national level for effective use of material and system national standards are referred. Compliance with a national standard preferably by a third party/independent agencies like BIS Standard Mark Scheme operated by BIS is considered as a means to bring confidence in users mind about the suitability of materials/systems. All the materials/systems especially newly developed one, however, are not covered by Indian Standard and therefore cannot be covered under that scheme. The process of formulation of a standard at national level requires necessary and authentic data regarding the performance including its testing, durability, usability and a general acceptance of the material/technique by all those involved in the formulation of standard. Due to variety of reasons such as lack of technical data,

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product being a proprietary item, absence of code of practice, lack of acceptance at national level etc., there remains a time gap between the introduction of new/innovative material/system and availability of a national standard on the subject. Many of such technologies/materials do not, therefore, easily get translated to field use, though they have got potential to replace conventional materials.

Performance Appraisal Certification Scheme (PACS) introduced by Ministry of Urban Development & Poverty Alleviation, Government of India aims to bring answers to these inhibitions through Performance Appraisal Certificate issued for such products. PACS also focuses on policies of the Government designed to encourage small-scale units, use of local materials, environmental protection, pollution control and energy conservation. Conceived in similar line to other such schemes in operation in other countries like United Kingdom, France, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, PACS is third party operated voluntary scheme for providing Performance Appraisal Certificate (PAC) to a manufacturer/supplier/installer of a building product which includes building material, product, component, element and system, etc. after due process of assessment. The process includes:
Establishing criteria for performance of the product

Verifying through lab and field test, that the product conforms to requirements for satisfactory performance, durability and safety Operation of a Quality Assurance Scheme by the manufacturer/supplier/installer Issue of PAC providing, amongst other things, necessary data to designers and users

The operation of PAC includes a mechanism for obtaining proactive user feedback and user complaint redressal

The verification process is a periodic activity, not merely confined to initial grant of the Certificate.
The Performance Appraisal Certificate gives information to serve two needs:

Knowledge of the product:

Scope of the products use Design data Strength and performance characteristics required Use/installation details Limitations in use Training needs for installation Maintenance needs Other information specific to the product considered necessary

Confidence in the product:

Responsibility of certificate holder

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Quality assurance Durability in conditions of use Safety requirements Procedures for redressal of user complaints

PACS thus is helpful to the manufacturer, designer, construction agencies and users by giving an informed choice of alternate material and technology. It also provides necessary data for standardization at national level. Discussions and Conclusions In Indian lot of research and development work for wide ranges of new building materials has been carried out in last few decades. Almost every research organisations, institutes, promoters and implementers tried to develop and popularise these building materials and technologies. The following measures are required for over all promotion of the new building materials in construction. Supply of quality waste material to improve the properties of final product. For example still we are not in position for supplying the graded flyash for the utilisation in different type of building materials and this is one of the major factors for low fly ash utilisation. Lack of proper guidelines, standards and codes for adoption of these materials in construction of private and public sectors. Research work and findings on new materials should pass on to new generation by adoption of these research works in the syllabus of the engineering students. Construction agencies like CPWD, PWD and AVS and building centres should come out with positive frame of mind and must give priority to those materials in construction that had already got a place in Indian standards.

Acknowledgement Authors of paper are grateful to Executive Director, Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council, New Delhi for encouragement and providing permission to contribute this paper in seminar.

Annex 1
Machines Developed and Promoted by BMTPC

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Precast concrete door/window frame machine Precast concrete C-Beam (rafters) machine Precast concrete lintel and shelve machine Finger jointing and shaping machine C-Brick machine Compressed Earth Block Machine (BALRAM) Micro Concrete Roofing Tile machine Alternative station hydraulic flyash brick machine

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9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

Bi-directional vibro press for flyash/concrete bricks, blocks and pavers (Three models) Ferrocement wall panel machine Concrete Block Machine (Sakar) RCC Plank Casting Machine (Rotating type) Ferrocement roofing channel machine Automatic coal stoker for brick and tile industry Machine for making red-mud jute polymer door shutters Hollow/solid concrete block machine (standing type) Precast concrete L-panel machine Hot press for bamboo mat corrugated roofing sheet RCC Joist Casting Machine (Egg laying Type) Mobile Stone/coal crusher Precast Concrete RCC Plank Machine Precast Concrete RCC Joists Machine RCC Plank Casting Machine (Egg Laying Type) Pipe and Bar Cutting Machine Solid/Hollow Concrete Block Machine (Egg Laying Type) Solid/Hollow Concrete Block Machine (hand Held Type) MCR Tile Machine (Manual) Ferrocement Door Shutter Machine Solid/Hollow Concrete Block Machine (Manual) TNG Rural Housing Kit Chequered/Terrazo Tile Machine Multipurpose Stone Cutting, Polishing and Grinding Machine Compressed Earth Block Machine (Mardini) Compressed Earth Block Machine (Hydraform)

* Development Officer (BM-PD), Building Materials & Technology Promotion Council, Ministry of Urban Development & Poverty Alleviation, Govt. of India ** Chief (Building Materials), Building Materials & Technology Promotion Council, Ministry of

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Urban Development & Poverty Alleviation, Govt. of India

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