Durability is a crucial attribute when choosing building materials. Buildings that last longer save on the cost of maintenance, replacement and lower embodied impacts over time.
Some of the most durable construction materials include reinforced concrete, steel, brick, and stone. Other materials like wood and composite materials also offer durability.
1. Wood
Wood is a classic building material and still has its place in many modern homes. It is a great option for insulation and can help save money on energy bills. It is also environmentally friendly. The longevity of wood structures depends on a variety of factors, including moisture intrusion, rot, and insect damage. Wood can be treated with various preservatives to limit the damage from these factors. With careful detailing, a wood structure can withstand most conditions.
With the right treatment, wood can last for hundreds of years and even longer. This is evident from ancient buildings such as 8th century Japanese temples, 11th-century Norwegian stave churches and more. With the right design, wood can be just as durable and long-lasting as concrete or steel.
Wood is a strong material that performs well under stress, particularly in compression and tension forces applied parallel to the grain. However, some limitations include the need for frequent maintenance such as re-staining and the fact that it can be more susceptible to rot than other materials like steel.
2. Concrete
Concrete is a non-combustible building material and can withstand high winds, hurricanes and tornadoes with minimal damage. Concrete also resists the rot and mold that can plague wood-frame buildings. It can even withstand earthquakes with relative ease, although it is generally more costly to build with than other materials.
Concrete can be made into a variety of shapes, sizes and textures depending on its intended use. Various additives, called admixtures, are added to concrete to improve its physical properties and speed up or slow down the process of hardening.
Concrete can be mixed with a number of other elements, like crushed stones and gravel, to achieve desired engineering properties. It is often reinforced with steel rebar to provide greater tensile strength and ductility, creating structures with the ability to withstand considerable compression and shear forces. Concrete requires relatively little maintenance and can be used in a variety of settings, from underwater construction to high-heat factories. It also resists moisture, unlike wood, and will not rust or corrode, though annual joint maintenance is recommended. Concrete buildings are often demolished for reasons other than deterioration, including functional obsolescence or relocation.
3. Steel
Steel is found in a wide range of household and commercial products, from the pots and pans we cook with to the vehicles we drive. It is one of the most versatile and durable materials on the planet.
It is incredibly strong, particularly in tension and compression, as well as being ductile and relatively low-weight. It is also resistant to corrosion and has the ability to withstand extreme temperatures from scorching heat to freezing cold. In addition, it is impervious to pests and inherently fire-resistant.
The durability of steel depends on the type of carbon and iron used as well as other alloying elements and how it is processed. There are over 3,500 different grades of steel, allowing it to be used for a multitude of applications.
Steel is highly machinable, with some types being easier than others to work with. It is also weldable, although some grades require specialized welding techniques. Its isotropic properties make it dimensionally stable and prevent moisture-related problems like warping, cracking, bending, and sagging. This results in a long lifespan and a lower life-cycle cost than other building materials that suffer from these issues.
4. Aluminum
Aluminum is a silvery metal that is highly resistant to corrosion and can be forged into different shapes. It is also a good conductor of heat and electricity. Unlike other metals, aluminum is not magnetic.
This durable material can be found in products from beverage cans to drug packaging. It is also recyclable and a great alternative to plastics. There are over 100 different aluminum alloys available, each with unique properties. All of them start with the mineral bauxite and go through a series of refining processes.
It is a post-transition metal, classified as a poor metal, and is found in the thirteenth column of the periodic table. An interesting property of aluminum is its ability to withstand very high temperatures without melting.
Scientists have discovered a way to make aluminum as strong as steel. By subjecting it to intense pressure, they mash the grains of aluminum mixed with magnesium and zinc down to nano-size. This makes it hard for dislocations in the atom’s atomic structure to move, making the metal very strong. This discovery could revolutionize the manufacturing industry.
5. Glass
Glass is brittle and hard but also beautiful, and its uses are varied and wide-ranging. From window panes to decorative vases and even optical prisms, glass plays important roles in the technological and decorative world.
Its durability and lifespan depend on the design of buildings, the materials used, and the maintenance process. However, a building’s lifespan and durability can be significantly reduced if not maintained properly.
To make glass, raw ingredients such as silica sand and limestone are heated until they become liquid. Then the mixture is cooled quickly enough to prevent a regular crystal structure from forming. But it’s a strange state of matter: atomically disordered but not quite liquid, not quite solid.
Physicists have long suspected that the disordered atoms of glass create an unusually low heat capacity, similar to that of a liquid, because there are few two-level systems for molecules to tunnel between. But it wasn’t until recently that experimental physicists at Berkeley and Madrid found direct evidence of this phenomenon. Their experiments revealed that glass’s atoms have an unusually low temperature, known as the Kauzmann temperature, near absolute zero.