Building material is any material which is used forconstruction purposes. Many naturally occurring substances, such as clay,rocks, sand, and wood, even twigs and leaves, have been used to constructbuildings. Apart from naturally occurring materials, many man-made products arein use, some more and some less synthetic. The manufacture of buildingmaterials is an established industry in many countries and the use of thesematerials is typically segmented into specific specialty trades, such ascarpentry, insulation, plumbing, and roofing work. They provide the make-up ofhabitats and structures including homes. Construction industry is the largestconsumer of material resources, of both the natural ones (like stone, sand,clay, lime) and the processed and synthetic ones. Each material which is usedin the construction, in one form or the other is known as construction material(engineering material). No material, existing in the universe is useless; everymaterial has its own field of application. Stone, bricks, timber, steel, lime,cement, metals etc. are some commonly used materials by civil engineers.Selection of building material, to be used in a particular construction, isdone on the basis of strength, durability, appearance and permeability. Thestone which is used in the construction works, in one form or another is alwaysobtained from the rocks. The rocks may be classified in four ways; geologicalclassification, physical classification, chemical classification andclassification based on hardness of the stone.
The book provide wide coverage of building materials such asstone, bricks, lime, mortars, concrete, asbestos, gray iron, cast iron, steelcastings, Aluminium, wood, architectural paints and so many others with theirapplications in building construction. The book is resourceful for allprofessionals related to construction field, technocrats, students andlibraries.
Market outlook
The globalmarket for construction materials is projected to exceed US $ 1 trillion by2020, driven by improving world economic outlook and recovering constructionactivity in residential, commercial and infrastructure sector. India'sconstruction industry will continue to expand over the forecast period(2016–2020), with investments in residential, infrastructure and energyprojects continuing to drive growth. The industry's output value in real termsis expected to rise at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.65% over theforecast period; up from 2.95% during the review period (2011–2015). For August2016, the construction final demand producer price index (PPI) was flat overJuly 2016, but is 0.7% above last year. The PPI for Inputs to constructionindustry goods was down -0.2% from last month and -1.7% from last year. Afterwhat will likely be 2% growth in 2016, overall construction costs areforecasted for ongoing growth in 2017 in the 2-3% range. These increases willbe primarily led by gains in construction labor wages, which is forecasted for3-4% in 2017.