1) Chapter 1 Overview of Construction Materials

BIT, Construction Materials December 2022
BAHIR DAR UNIVERSITY

BAHIR DAR INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
SCHOOL OF CIVIL AND WATER RESOURCES ENGINEERING
Construction Materials (CENG 6025)

1. Overview of Construction Materials
Programme : MSc in Civil Engineering (Construction Technology and Management)
Course Credit Hours: 3 Cr. Hrs ( 2 Hrs Lect, 3 Hrs Tut.)
Course Prerequisite: ---
Lecturer: Belachew Asteray (Ph.D.)
December 2022

Organized by: Belachew Asteray (PhD)
1.1. Background to Construction Materials

1.2. Types of Materials
1.3. Quality Control of construction materials
1.4. Local (Natural) available Construction Materials
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1.5. Current Situation and Prospect about Local Building

Material Quality Standard in Ethiopia
1.6. Standards for Construction Materials
December 2022 CENG 6025 Organized by: Belachew Asteray (PhD) 2
Organized by: Belachew Asteray (PhD) 1


1.1. Background to Construction Materials
• The long and still visible history of civil engineering shows how materials
influence construction practice and design.
• The survival of buildings, bridges and roads from ancient to modern times
shows clearly the methods of construction in every era and region, and
demonstrates repeatedly the close relation between available materials and
structural and architectural design.
• Modern materials are diverse in composition and in internal
microstructure.
• Scientifically, material properties are controlled by the atomic, molecular
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and microstructural organization, including pore structure.

• There is increasing emphasis on sustainability in the selection and
performance of materials.
1. Overview of Construction Materials…

1.1. Background to Construction Materials…
• Given the vast quantities of materials consumed in civil
engineering, it seems unlikely that radically new primary or
commodity materials will emerge in the near future.

• There are profound differences between the economics, needs
and practices of civil engineering, and of sectors such as
information storage, communications and biomedicine.
• While new high value-added materials produced in small
volumes using advanced manufacturing processes may offer
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unique benefits, we are unlikely to see radical displacement of the

main materials: concrete, steel, brick, stone, glass and
polymers.


1.1. Background to Construction Materials…
• Nevertheless, civil engineering benefits in many ways from developments
in materials technology in roles which are less apparent than as primary
structural materials.
• Concrete technology has exploited numerous chemical additives which
modify, for example, workability or allow air-entrainment to improve frost
resistance.
• Civil engineering and construction now are among the largest end-uses of
polymers (plastics and rubbers), mostly in non-structural applications
such as membranes, geotextiles, fibres, coatings, adhesives and sealants.
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• Sometimes, however, such materials come to the fore and find striking
architectural expression as, for example, in tension roof structures using
polymer/glass textiles.

• Engineering as a whole makes use of a vast diversity of materials.
• Civil engineering and building construction worldwide consume
large quantities of natural materials such as stones, aggregates

and wood.
• But, there are also important manufactured materials such as
cements, fired clay bricks and tiles, glass, plasters; an expanding
use of polymer materials particularly for pipework, in
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geomembranes, as well as for coatings, fibres and adhesives; and

of course all the major types of ferrous and non-ferrous metals:
the steels, copper, zinc, aluminium, lead and others.


• In materials science, it is
conventional (and useful)
to classify materials into

three broad groups:
• metals,
• ceramics and
• polymers.
• These groups are
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distinguished
fundamentally by
• their composition and
• their chemical constitution.

• The metals owe their useful engineering properties to the distinctive
chemical bonding which exists in certain elements of the Periodic Table,
such as iron, aluminium and copper.
• This bonding provides strong cohesion within bulk metallic materials, leading
typically (but not invariably) to high strength, high density as well as high thermal
and electrical conductivity.
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• Ceramics (and glasses) owe their cohesion to ionic and covalent bonds.
• They are formed from combinations of non-metallic and metallic elements: for
example, sodium, silicon and oxygen in simple glasses; or calcium, silicon and
oxygen in Portland cement.

• The cohesion in ceramics is also strong, and this yields stiff, strong materials,
generally less dense than metals but with high melting temperatures.
• The more complex internal bonding makes plastic adjustment to high stress more
difficult than in metals, so that ceramics and glasses are characteristically brittle.
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• Polymer materials are universally constructed from carbon, generally in
combination with other light non-metallic elements such as hydrogen and
oxygen, in distinctive chain and network structures.
• The interatomic cohesion combines strong, stiff bonds within the chains and weak
interaction forces between them.
• This produces materials with low stiffness, low melting temperature and low density,
but high plasticity.
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1.3. Quality Control of construction materials
• Quality Control in construction materials is important to upgrade
the required design strengths, architectural appearances,
improve safety and durability of the structures and to ensure

users compatibility.
• The final product has to fulfill the needs and aspirations of the
user to use the structure without any difficulty.
• This objective can be achieved by continuous quality
control in all the stages of the project.
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• Professionals should emphasize stringent measure on material

selection and their regular testing procedures in order to meet the
design and overall requirements.

1.3. Quality Control of construction materials…
• All construction materials used in the construction industry should
be acceptable quality standards.
• These materials should be incompliance with the relevant codes
and specifications.
• The suitability of these materials can be confirmed by performing
material testing at regular intervals.
• The important of materials tests forms the importance in
structural elements.
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• Generally, Quality Control of construction materials

• Preconstruction stage- conformity with designs
• Construction stage
• Post construction stage-
December 2022
commissioning of equipment's
CENG 6025 Organized by: Belachew Asteray (PhD) 12


1.4. Local (Natural) available Construction Materials …
• Natural materials are those that are unprocessed or minimally
processed by industry, such as lumber or glass.
• Mud, stone, and fibrous plants are the most basic materials, aside
from tents made of flexible materials such as cloth or skins.

• People all over the world have used these three materials
together to create homes to suit their local weather conditions.
• In general, stone and/or brush are used as basic structural
components in these buildings, while mud is used to fill in the
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space between, acting as a type of concrete and insulation.

• Soil and especially clay is good thermal mass; it is very good at
keeping temperatures at a constant level.
• Homes built with earth tend to be naturally cool in the summer
heat and warm in cold weather.

• Clay holds heat or cold, releasing it over a period of time like
stone.
• Earthen walls change temperature slowly, so artificially raising
or lowering the temperature can use more resources than in say a
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wood built house, but the heat/coolness stays longer.


• Rock is a very dense material so it gives a lot of protection too,
its main draw-back as a material is its weight and awkwardness.
• Its energy density is also considered a big draw-back, as stone
is hard to keep warm without using large amounts of heating

resources.
• Dry-stone walls have been built for as long as humans have put
one stone on top of another.
• Eventually different forms of mortar were used to hold the
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stones together, cement being the most commonplace now.

• Thatch is one of the oldest of materials known; grass is a
good insulator and easily harvested.
• Many African tribes have lived in homes made completely of

grasses year round.
• In Europe, thatch roofs on homes were once prevalent but the
material fell out of favour as industrialization and improved
transport increased the availability of other materials.
• Brush structures are built entirely from plant parts and are
generally found in tropical and subtropical areas, such as
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rainforests, where very large leaves can be used in the

building.


• Ice was used
• for ice hotels as a tourist attraction in northern areas that
might not otherwise see many winter tourists.

• Wood
• a product of trees, and sometimes other fibrous plants, used
for construction purposes when cut or pressed into lumber
and timber, such as boards, planks and similar materials.
• It is a generic construction material and is used in
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construction just about any type of structure in most

climates.
Current Situation and Prospect about Local Building

Organized by: Belachew Asteray (Ph.D)
Material Quality Standard in Ethiopia
• Background to Local Building Materials

• Building Regulations and Quality Assurance in Ethiopia
• Current Situation about Local Building Material Quality
Standard
• Summary: Prospects about Local Building Materials


1.5. Current Situation and Prospect about Local Building Material Quality Standard in Ethiopia
Background to Local Building Materials
• Even though Ethiopia has it’s own several ancient civilizations, from
the 60s there is a great influence by the international style of

architectural design.
• Apart from that, because of the international style influence, the
country can not relate itself with tradition while, we have not yet been
to able satisfy the basic housing needs of our people even with the
modern solutions.

Background to Local Building Materials…


• The copy/paste of
architectural strategies brings

a myriad of serious problems.
• Instead of using locally
available materials, more than
80% of the construction
materials in Ethiopia are
imported.

• Currently, in the Ethiopian construction sector, the major problem is
availability of building materials.

• Today, building materials have become very expensive so that low-income
people are almost unable to build their houses.
• As a common practice, usually Eucalyptus tree, mud, clay blocks and corrugated
iron sheets are widely used.
• Reinforced concrete slabs were tried, but they were found out to be difficult to make
water tight in most constructions.
• This in fact could be improved if proper management and good quality
control of materials were available.
• Hence, it is important to encourage construction of buildings with local
materials and of course with consideration of functional requirements and
proper management.


Local Building Materials
• Building Stone
• includes any type of rock,

shaped and dressed to
blocks or slabs, used for
construction.
• The bedrock geology of
Ethiopia embraces a
great variety of rock types
within a wide age range
(Mohr 1971, Kazmin
1972, Mengesh et al.
1996; Fig. 1).

• Bamboo:
• Ethiopia has an estimated one million hectares of natural bamboo

forest, the largest in the African continent.
• According to, Bamboo Senior Expert and Technologist, Mulatu
Teshale says bamboo in Ethiopia is not well utilized beyond
construction of a houses, boats, fencing, house furniture and
equipment.
• Thus, its huge economic contribution is underestimated and
unable to play its stake in generating foreign currency accordingly.


• Manufactured Sand:
• The consumption of natural river sand is very much high, because

of more usage of concrete.
• Due to more construction in Ethiopia, river sand is becoming very
much expensive and demanding.
• Manufactured sand is one of the good alternative materials to
replace natural river sand.
• The term Manufactured sand is nothing but the aggregate material whose
size is less than 5.0mm.

• Straw Bales:
• Agriculture is the mainstay of the Ethiopian economy, contributing

41.4% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), 83.9% of
the total exports, and 80% of all employment in the country.
• Straw is the dead, dried stems of cereals.
• It is left over after the grain is removed in the harvesting process.
• Wheat, sorghum, sesame, rice, and some herbalists are the most
commonly grown cereal crops around the country.


• Ferrock Cement:
• For each ton of cement produced more or less eight ton of CO2 is released.
It is terrifyingly polluting the environment.
• In recent times, this problem is addressed by the use of Ferrock.
• The name Ferrock is a reflection of its composition – largely iron-rich ferrous rock.
• It’s actually created from waste steel dust which is normally discarded from
industrial processes and silica from ground up glass. The iron within the
steel dust reacts with CO2 and water to form iron carbonate.
• It is this that is fused into the matrix of Ferrock and, like concrete, after it is
dried, it cannot be melted back into a liquid form but retains its hard,
rocklike qualities.

• Construction & Demolition Waste:
• Demolition waste is waste debris from destruction of a construction.

• Construction industry generates about min 10-12 million Tons of waste
annually country wise.
• While Retrievable items like bricks, wood, metal, tiles etc. can be
recycle.


• Compressed Earth Blocks:
• Soil being readily available, represents the earliest construction material to be used by
mankind.
• Earthen construction technologies have evolved from manufacturing (low strength and
less durable) plain mud-straw utilized sundried brick.
• Compressed soil block, is a building material made mainly from damp soil compressed
at high pressure to form blocks.
• Compressed earth blocks use a mechanical press to form blocks out of an appropriate mix
of fairly dry inorganic subsoil, non-expansive clay and aggregate.
• If the blocks are stabilized with a chemical binder such as Portland cement, they are
called compressed stabilized earth block (CSEB) or stabilized earth block (SEB). [18]
The advantages of the CEB: On-site materials can be used, which cuts cost, reduces
transport costs for materials, and rises efficiency and sustainability.

Cement products in Ethiopia
•
https://www.cemnet.com/global-cement-report/country/ethiopia


• Hollow Concrete Blocks -HCB
• are blocks manufactured from concrete and

processed into moulds, to achieve the required
physical strength and dimensions to requirements
and standards.
• Marble
• Ceramic Tile
• Granite
• PVC
• etc

Building Regulations and Quality Assurance in Ethiopia
• Building Regulations
• The building code sets out building regulations and requirements.

• It is a legal document and it confers powers to all the local authorities to over see that
the building code and building by-laws are maintained in the areas of their
jurisdiction.
• But since the housing policy of Ethiopia was not strong in the past, several
disorganized urban plans, designs, construction methods are visible.
• To overcome these problems, research works on up grading low-income
housing, proposing new low-cost housing projects, introducing new
sanitation methods, use of local building materials and transfer of
construction technology are still in progress.


• Standardization
• Standardization in building is a process of creating various elements in

building to a certain specification size and quality.
• Standardization is an important principle of rationalization and requires that
buildings be built of standardized components.
• The other benefits of standardization include reduced Construction time,
improved quality and reduced costs.
• In Ethiopia, there has been standardization programs in the industry, and
also major manufacturers have been offering standardized product range.
• Standardized materials available to the industry include roofing materials,
pre-cast concrete materials, steel windows, doors and electrical fittings.

• Quality and construction Control
• Apart from quality of workmanship, the building

materials are tested to ensure the quality i.e. since the
Ethiopian standard code of practice sets minimum
quality requirements, the materials should fulfil the
standards specified by the code before using them in the
construction project.


• Quality assurance
• In order to achieve safety and quality of construction works,

• Building material producers and users should take measures
to avoid the production of hazardous materials and ensure the
safety and protection of works.
• Architects and engineers should specify safe materials

ETHIOPIAN BUILDING PROCLAMATION (PROCLAMATION NO. 624/2009)
• to determine the minimum national

standard for the construction or
modification of buildings or
alteration of their use in order to
ensure public health and safety;
• to establish and implement national
standards and basic policy criteria
for public health, education, as well
as science and technology



• 53. Use of Improper Materials or Defective Workmanship

• 1/ Any registered contractor or sub contractor who is issued with a work
permit by the relevant authority
• a) performs a construction work with a low quality or below standard material in
contravention of the standard set or the accepted practice for such type of
construction;
• is punishable with rigorous imprisonment from five years up to
ten years and a fine from fifty thousand to hundred thousand
birr.


Current Situation about Local Building Material Quality Standard
• Ethiopian Standards Agency
• has three core business areas which

mainly focus on
• the standards formulation,
• training and Technical support and
• organizing and disseminating
information on standards, Conformity
assessment procedures and Technical
regulation for the customers

Current Situation about Local Building Material Quality
Standard


Current Situation about Local Building Material Quality
Standard




Summary: Prospects about Local Building Materials
• Future Prospects by MUDC
• Ministry of Urban Development and Construction announced

Ethiopia’s aspirations to produce 80 % of construction materials
locally over the next ten years (FBC July 23, 2020) .
• Substitution of imported construction materials with local
products has a paramount significance in terms of saving foreign
currency and expands foster new job opportunities in the industry.


• General :
• “Making Best Use of Resources to Serve Construction”,

• “Technical Innovation”
• “Internationalization of Building Materials”

• Effective Construction Resource Management
• Materials can account for up to 70% of a project’s

construction costs.
• Reduce waste and save costs through proper resource management
and accurate estimates.
• Large-scale projects can be complex, with loads of different
materials and processes that go into each job.
• To make sure that your business maximises success, proper
construction resource management is crucial.


• Technical Innovation in construction materials
https://www.planradar.com/gb/top-15-innovative-construction-materials/

• Internationalization of Building Materials
• In today‘s ever-changing globalized and interconnected economic system, no

business is isolated from the influence of international markets.
• The construction industry has evolved and continues its evolution rapidly
over the time.
• Globalization and developments in science and technology coupled with the
significant demand for complex industrial and engineering projects
encourages the construction industry to operate beyond their local, regional
and national boundaries.
• Therefore, it‘s imperative for international construction firms to enhance
their understanding of the key trends shaping the internationalization of
construction industry.

1.6. Standards for Construction Materials

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BIT, Construction Materials December 2022

BAHIR DAR UNIVERSITY

Construction Materials (CENG 6025)

1. Overview of Construction Materials

1.1. Background to Construction Materials

1.5. Current Situation and Prospect about Local Building

Organized by: Belachew Asteray (PhD) 1

1. Overview of Construction Materials

and microstructural organization, including pore structure.

1. Overview of Construction Materials…

commodity materials will emerge in the near future.

unique benefits, we are unlikely to see radical displacement of the

Organized by: Belachew Asteray (PhD) 2

1. Overview of Construction Materials…

1. Overview of Construction Materials…

large quantities of natural materials such as stones, aggregates

geomembranes, as well as for coatings, fibres and adhesives; and

Organized by: Belachew Asteray (PhD) 3

1. Overview of Construction Materials…

to classify materials into

1. Overview of Construction Materials…

December 2022 CENG 6025 Organized by: Belachew Asteray (PhD) 8

Organized by: Belachew Asteray (PhD) 4

1. Overview of Construction Materials…

oxygen in Portland cement.

December 2022 CENG 6025 Organized by: Belachew Asteray (PhD) 9

1. Overview of Construction Materials…

December 2022 CENG 6025 Organized by: Belachew Asteray (PhD) 10

Organized by: Belachew Asteray (PhD) 5

1. Overview of Construction Materials…

improve safety and durability of the structures and to ensure

• Professionals should emphasize stringent measure on material

1. Overview of Construction Materials…

• Generally, Quality Control of construction materials

Organized by: Belachew Asteray (PhD) 6

1. Overview of Construction Materials…

from tents made of flexible materials such as cloth or skins.

space between, acting as a type of concrete and insulation.

December 2022 CENG 6025 Organized by: Belachew Asteray (PhD) 13

1. Overview of Construction Materials…

heat and warm in cold weather.

wood built house, but the heat/coolness stays longer.

December 2022 CENG 6025 Organized by: Belachew Asteray (PhD) 14

Organized by: Belachew Asteray (PhD) 7

1. Overview of Construction Materials…

is hard to keep warm without using large amounts of heating

stones together, cement being the most commonplace now.

December 2022 CENG 6025 Organized by: Belachew Asteray (PhD) 15

1. Overview of Construction Materials…

• Many African tribes have lived in homes made completely of

rainforests, where very large leaves can be used in the

Organized by: Belachew Asteray (PhD) 8

1. Overview of Construction Materials…

might not otherwise see many winter tourists.

construction just about any type of structure in most

1. Overview of Construction Materials…

Current Situation and Prospect about Local Building

Material Quality Standard in Ethiopia

• Background to Local Building Materials

December 2022 CENG 6025 Organized by: Belachew Asteray (PhD) 18

Organized by: Belachew Asteray (PhD) 9

1. Overview of Construction Materials…

the 60s there is a great influence by the international style of