Strong, lightweight construction materials improve your project’s sustainability and limit its impact on the environment. VIP Structures in Syracuse, NY offers many innovative and cutting edge construction materials that meet these requirements.
These materials are favoured by modular construction professionals as they help keep projects on the critical path running on schedule. They also offer cost savings.
Structural
The lightweight construction materials market has seen rapid growth due to their reduced foundations and environment-friendly nature. They also have higher fire resistance and require less steel reinforcement, which reduces overall project costs. These materials have many advantages over traditional building methods and can be used for a variety of applications, including stadiums and exhibition structures. The structures constructed with these materials can carry large loads and are designed to withstand the elements. Some of these include braced vaults and domes, folded structures, space grids, trussed systems, and cable bridges.
These materials can also be used in the exteriors of buildings to create walls and roofs. Some of them have thermal insulation properties, which reduce energy consumption and maintain coolness in the summer. They are also durable and can withstand earthquakes and storms. In addition, they are easy to transport and assemble, which makes them popular for construction projects in remote areas.
Forward-thinking builders are using innovative construction materials that improve the quality of their buildings and limit their impact on the environment. These materials can also be recycled, which is a key consideration for green buildings. For example, a timber house built with CLT (cross-laminated timber) walls provides excellent insulation and is five times lighter than a concrete building. Other new technologies include concrete made from plant fibre, which is more environmentally friendly than conventional cement.
Architectural
As the construction industry shifts toward sustainability and environmentalism, lightweight materials are making a mark. The materials have a lower embodied energy rating, which means they use less energy during their life cycle. These materials also tend to be a lot more responsive in terms of cooling and heating, which makes them better for building in warmer climates.
The popularity of insulated panels, timber or light steel framing, and polystyrene building products is testament to the versatility of these alternative construction materials. They are suited to both new buildings and retrofits of existing structures. Using these types of materials can lead to a more energy efficient home, which in turn leads to savings on electricity bills.
There are also a variety of environmental friendly materials for walls and roofs that help improve the sustainability of buildings. These include materials that use recycled wood or cellulose, as well as insulation materials such as blown sand or cellulose fibre. Some even incorporate waste material such as coconut shells and durian husks.
Another environmentally friendly option is to make use of lightweight concrete. It requires less structural steel reinforcement and smaller foundations, as well as having better fire resistance. It is made with foaming agents like aluminium powder or from lightweight aggregates such as pumice, scoria, volcanic cinder, tuff, and diatomite.
Transportation
Aside from the obvious environmental benefits of lightweight construction materials, there are also significant transportation applications. This can include the transportation of materials in bulk, or it may be the transport of finished buildings and structures to their intended locations.
In the case of building materials, this can involve trucks, boats, barges, ships and other watercraft. This can reduce the cost of shipping because more materials are capable of being loaded in a single load than heavier traditional structural materials. It can also lower emissions and other undesirable environmental impacts.
Many new lightweight materials and construction techniques can be seen in use worldwide. Concrete made from plant fibre, for example, has a much lower carbon footprint than traditional cement and can be used as an insulation material. Eco-friendly timber blocks are becoming more popular in Scandinavia, Japan and the USA as a means of addressing the need for sustainable construction and energy efficiency.
Other innovative methods of construction and materials include membrane, cable, shell, folded and space grid structures. These can be used for long-span roofs, such as those on stadiums or exhibition structures, entrance structures, and environmental protection canopies. A new approach to design based on biomimicry and topology optimization is also helping to achieve weight savings. Biologists, design engineers and computer scientists are optimizing structural loads by placing materials where they will perform best. This is known as lightweighting and it can result in savings of up to 50% on the construction costs.
Environmental
The utilisation of lightweight construction materials offers advantages not only in terms of speed of construction, cost savings and efficiency but also in limiting the impact on natural resources and the environment. Innovative building materials such as CLT offer excellent thermal insulation and strength, requiring only a fraction of the material required for concrete structures to achieve similar results. In addition, eco-friendly insulation products such as polystyrene are playing a major role in Australian construction, with a number of projects incorporating these essential energy saving and environmental benefits.
A number of other lightweight building materials are proving popular with forward thinking builders, including plant fibre reinforced concrete and mass timber. The latter is an emerging technology that uses thick layers of wood compressed together to form structural panels, beams and walls for construction. This material can reduce on-site waste and utilise wood that would otherwise be discarded, and is particularly environmentally friendly when combined with responsible forestry practices.
Other environmentally friendly construction materials are becoming increasingly prevalent, such as cork and bamboo. These materials are flexible, resilient and can withstand a great deal of pressure. They are also able to absorb and dampen sound, making them ideal for use in floors and sub-flooring. Bamboo has the added advantage of being a sustainable and renewable resource, while cork can be harvested without killing the tree.