Introduction to Civil Engineering Profession

Prof. Manu Santhanam

Department of Civil Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Lecture - 08
Construction Materials and Methods

Hello everybody, welcome to the session on Construction Materials and Methods. I am

Manu Santhanam. I am working in the building technology and construction
management division of the Department of Civil Engineering in IIT, Madras. I specialize
in construction materials, primarily concrete and my research is based on concrete
technology. So, today I will give you a glimpse of what is out there in terms of
construction materials and practices. Often times what we see is the evolution of
materials deals with the way that we try to construct with these materials. So, the kind of
construction practices are driven by the kind of materials that we actually have. So, I will
take you through a journey of different types of materials and where we are currently and
where we are going from here.

(Refer Slide Time: 00:59)

So, I will start with talking about why we want to study construction materials, what
governs material choice, how do we actually decide what material is best for a particular
situation. We will look at some historical evolution of materials and methods. I will
specifically talk about masonry and concrete because that is the most relevant in terms of
materials for the Indian context, we use mostly masonry and concrete type buildings. We
will look at some examples of iconic structures with different materials and look at some
interesting aspects about the construction methodologies adopted in some of these
structures. And finally, we will end with a look at the challenges in material science and
practice.

(Refer Slide Time: 01:39)

So, you know very well that there are several different types of civil engineering
materials that are available today. Common ones being steel, concrete and asphalt, wood,
polymers and plastics; you have other metals like aluminum, copper which are also used
in construction. Today we are talking a lot about using composite materials which was
earlier used in the aeronautical, mechanical engineering, today we start using composite
materials also in civil engineering.

So, you know very well from what you have seen around you, you have observed quite a
bit that concrete apparently looks to be the material that is most widely used. In fact, it is
a second most consumed material in the world after; what is the first most consumed
material?

Student: Brick, iron, soil.

Soil, well. So, if you consider soil as a construction material, yes we use a lot of soil in
construction.
Student: Water

Concrete is a material that is consumed in quantities which is second only to water. So,
significantly large content of water is actually consumed for several things, of course
including construction. But concrete is a second most consumed material. Apparently,
we are using about 25 billion tons of concrete every year, 25 billion tons as per the last
estimate, and it is only bound to go up, because, we know that in countries like India in
several African countries and in several other Asian counties, there is a lot more work
that needs to be done regarding development, infrastructure and that is where concrete is
going to be used more and more.

So obviously, there is a heavy burden that we are placing on the environment and these
are some other aspects that we will look at towards the end when we look at the
challenges as far as the material study is concerned.

(Refer Slide Time: 03:25)

For now, let us look at why do we want to study materials, I mean they are available and
why not just use them. But there are several different aspects why we want to actually
engage in a deeper understanding of material characteristics, in order to make our
construction more appropriate and more sustainable and more durable in the long term.
So, idea is to improve the quality of the existing materials and enhance the performance
and service life. So, later when you learn other aspects of engineering, you learn about
service life being one of the controlling factors which governs the choice of a given
material or a construction product or a process.

Service life essentially deals with how long is the material or the structure able to with
stand it’s given environment without losing its quality with which it is actually
performing. The other aspect is, we want to always look for new materials which are cost
effective and materials that are actually durable and long lasting. So, that is another
aspect why we want to understand materials deeper from a scientific point of view.

Utilization of waste today is turning out to be quite a big challenge, because we have to
extensively dispose a lot of waste that is generated from different types of industries. In
many cases, we find that construction is a scenario where we can actually utilize many of
these waste products. But not because we are just putting waste in the material and
except it to perform, but because a lot of the waste can actually end up being a value
added resource to construction materials and projects.

So, waste utilization is another aspect why we want to study materials and understand the
effect of these materials on the existing construction materials. Also, we have
infrastructure which is ailing, getting old, we need to understand how materials degrade
with respect to time so that they can decide on appropriate strategies for repairing
rehabilitation with which we can prolong the service of these existing structures. You all
travel by trains and you may have seen many of our railway bridges are on the verge of
actually deteriorating to a state where they cannot be probably recovered any more.

So, because of that we need to understand how the material behaves with time and try to
service the ailing infrastructures so that we can extend this service life of these kinds of
structures.
(Refer Slide Time: 05:35)

So, there are several factors that govern or influence the choice of materials. First and for
most, it depends upon the type of application, what exactly are you constructing, what
material is locally available and available at effective cost. So, cost should be low and
the material should be available plenty locally and that is probably the most important
factors with respect to the choice of material.

Of course, in certain areas the climate will govern the choice of a material. For example,
if you go to the Northern European country where very little day light is available most
of the time, you could use glass as one of the major materials of construction because it
allows in a lot more light. But unfortunately, in India also we started copying the western
use of glass, and most of our IT buildings and structures have also come up with these
glass facades that are completely enveloping the building. What is the problem with
using glass in a climate like ours?

It brings in a lot more heat into the structure, and because it does that, we spend a lot
more energy trying to air condition the buildings. So, we are sort of losing the battle
when we try to choose materials and technologies that are not really apt for our
environment. So, climate is one of the deciding factors why we want to choose a
particular material for a certain location. The other aspect obviously is performance
requirements. what exactly do we want this material to do, what kind of engineering
characteristics are expected from this type of materials? So, that is the performance
requirement.

Aesthetics again is an important factor; you obviously want to choose or builds structures
that look good. In many circumstances the same material may not look or give the ideal
aesthetic qualities in different types of structures. Finally, of course, one thing which we
have neglected so far, but we are beginning to realize that it’s important are the
environmental concerns about the use of these materials like energy content, the raw
material usage, depletion of natural resources and things like that and emissions that we
have related to the production of the material itself. We will talk briefly about that
towards the end of this lecture.

(Refer Slide Time: 07:43)

So, let us look at how materials and methods have evolved over the years. This is sort of
a historical process. But it is not probably entirely accurate in the way that I have
depicted the different materials and processes, but idea was to give you a comprehensive
glimpse of what type of construction materials and processes are actually undertaken by
engineers to build the types of structures.

So, you have Monolithic construction, probably the oldest variety where people simply
built out of carving rock. So, the caves are the earliest example of a dwelling as far as
human civilization is concerned and these caves were actually built into the existing
mountains by simply drilling and knocking things down and making a space for yourself
inside, so just to create a safe space for yourself. Later on, people realized that they had
to work with smaller blocks of materials so that they can actually construct in a lot
grander fashion, because you can only do So much as far as monolithic construction is
concerned, you cannot really go beyond a certain scale.

So, then they started looking at smaller blocks, assembling these blocks in various types
of shapes and sizes and that is what we call as masonry. Of course, along the same time
wood was also quite highly prevalent in areas where good quality wood for construction
was available. Wood as a construction material probably dates back to as long as
masonry is being used.

Later on, we entered the era of concrete where people started realizing that you can
actually optimize further the combinations of different types of materials to give you
certain very interesting characteristics. For example, in the fresh state concrete is
flowable which makes it possible to cast it in different types of shapes, which is not
possible with masonry all the time, which is not possible with monolithic construction
also.

From concrete, we entered the era of reinforced concrete and steel, with more and more
steel being utilized in our buildings we started to realize that we can actually do things to
buildings which we could not envisage with the masonry or concrete. Primarily because
we are utilizing the property of steel, of its high strength and ductility and with that we
could actually start optimizing the usage of materials and build structures that were a lot
more cost effective, could take a lot more load and could perform exceedingly well in
disaster such as earthquakes.

And then moving on from there we are encountering today several examples of
composite construction, and in the long term, we are looking forward to the use of smart
materials and sensing materials that can actually govern the performance of the structure
as we live in it and adapt the environment to suit the needs of the inhabitant. So, these
are smart materials, probably the way to go forward in the future. But a bulk of our
building constructions stock will still be in concrete and steel and that is what we are
primarily using today as a construction material in India.
(Refer Slide Time: 10:33)

Now, let us show some examples here of monolithic construction, this is all too familiar
for you, the figure on the right, can anybody tell me where that is from?

Student: Hampi.

Sorry.

Student: (Refer Time: 10:44)

Of course, it says there it is from Hampi. It says on the slide, it is from Hampi, it is
basically a chariot which is carved out of a single rock. On the left you see another
picture.

Student: Ellora

From Ellora, yes, you see again that, from a single rock you have carved out an entire
temple.
(Refer Slide Time: 11:05)

As you move forward towards masonry, the simplest examples of masonry are the Dry
Stack Masonry. So, you just take blocks and keep it on top of one another. And how is it
stable? Because of gravity; because of sheer mass. You use really massive components
and as you go to the top of the structure, you keep on reducing the size of these
components. Like the great pyramids of Egypt are essentially dry stacked limestone
blocks that were kept on top of each other and ultimately resulted in a massive structure
which even today is a fairly significant landmark in the world.

Moving on from dry stack masonry, then people started realizing that to really achieve
such feet’s, you have to be super humans for lifting these blocks, I do not know if
anybody reads asterix in this room, you must have read asterix and Cleopatra where they
drinks this magic potion and lift all these blocks and build all these wonderful structures.

So, something like that must have happened to really make these workers lift all these
blocks or they would have had very good engineering techniques to lift these heavy
blocks to get them placed one and top of each other. But moving on, people thought this
was not really the best way to move forward. Let us look at some ways to join these
blocks, so that they can work with smaller blocks that people can carry quite easily and
that is where the jointed masonry started being practiced.
(Refer Slide Time: 12:23)

And jointed masonry even today is practiced; only thing that is changing in jointed
masonry is the type of cementing material used to bind these blocks together. So, in the
past you have several other examples, I will come to that binding material part a little bit
later. Today of course, we only think about cement as the only possibility as far as
joining masonry blocks are concerned. So, these are some examples, on the left you have
a brick masonry structure and the on the right you have a stone masonry structure. Both
of these have very fine detailing work done with the joints and that gives a very nice
appearance to the entire structure.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:57)

.
Moving on from jointed masonry, you can actually get a lot more optimization with the
speed of construction. Please remember when you are doing a jointing process in a
masonry block; you are placing one layer of masonry. Then you have to actually place
the cement mortar or lime mortar on top which is the binding material then put the next
layer on. But you cannot keep doing this entire process in a single day, you need to wait
for the material to harden, otherwise the wall will become unstable and fall.

So, because of that, the use of mortar for joining the blocks is a process than actually
slows down the construction work significantly. If you really think about it, it slows
down the construction work significantly. So, the way around it is to ensure that you do
not have to actually put anymore mortar. But you can still get good stability by providing
interlocking between your blocks, and this is something you all know from your
childhood days. You have played with lego and other sorts of building blocks where you
actually connect because of the interlocking capabilities of these sort of blocks.

And such interlocking blocks lead you to have a construction which can be done much
faster than what you would have in the case of a jointed masonry.

(Refer Slide Time: 14:11)

From interlocking, people started getting the idea that you can strengthen masonry
structures even better, when you have reinforcement put inside the structures. So, the
need for providing additional strength to masonry comes in when we actually look at the
performance of masonry in disasters events like earthquakes. So, in earthquakes you can
imagine that the structure actually has a motion that is moving along with the ground. In
such cases, just having a good strength in the axial direction is not going to help. So, we
need to start providing some degree of load carrying ability which can actually take the
loads in the lateral direction. In such cases, proving a reinforcement can go a long way in
actually extending the load carrying ability of your masonry.

So, reinforcements in masonry became the next step in the development of masonry
structures and where you could look at providing certain cavities within the masonry.
Putting a reinforcement rod like steel rod that we typically use with concrete and
providing the reinforcement that provides the lateral resistance. So, reinforced masonry
was a next step forward from your jointed masonry and interlocking masonry to provide
additional load carrying abilities to your structure.

(Refer Slide Time: 15:25)

But coming back to the jointed part, as I was saying, the primary reason why people
went for this was, because they discovered or they invented combinations of materials
which could give very good binding characteristics, which could join these pieces of
masonry blocks together, and this binding characteristic is made possible because of use
of different cementing materials. If you will go to the past structures in Egypt and in
Greece, lot of the burnt bricks and alabaster were cemented using bitumen.

Now, today we know that bitumen is used to actually pave roads. But the same material
was earlier found in natural pools. You know the process of formation of bitumen, right?
It is formed from the process of distillation of your petroleum or crude oil. You get
several products like gasoline, kerosene all those kinds of things and what remains as a
residue is asphalt. This asphalt also occurs in naturally occurring pools around the world
and people were actually able to extract this asphalt and use this as a binder to bind these
masonry blocks together.

So, that became the first sort of binding material to start binding these masonry blocks.
But later in Egypt people started using burnt gypsum based cementing material,
something that you would have done in school is to use plaster of Paris as a molding
material, right? When you mix plaster of Paris with water, what happens? It hardens
because it converts to gypsum. Plaster of Paris is CaSO4.1/2H2O, when you add water to
it, it becomes CaSO4. 2H2O.

So, it causes hardening of this material and that again was a very popular binding
material used in the past. Now the only problem is that gypsum is not highly resistant to
moisture. When rain falls in, gypsum will slowly erode away, because of which the
binding properties may get reduced with respect to time. Later on, people started
realizing that the best quality binding could be obtained by using lime, lime is basically
your calcium oxide. Where is it obtained? From burning of

Student: Limestone

Limestone, that is calcium carbonate. When you burn calcium carbonate at temperature
more than 800 degrees you lose the carbon dioxide, and what remains behind is your
lime. When you react lime with water, what does it do?

Student: Calcium hydroxide.

It produces calcium hydroxide and this calcium hydroxide again absorbs CO2 from the
atmosphere and converts to.

Student: Calcium carbonate.

Calcium carbonate so that is the lime cycle. We started off with calcium carbonate; we
end up with calcium carbonate. So, that is again one of the technologies that people
started looking at with a lot of interest because this had the potential now to actually do
massive levels of construction because of the excellent binding properties you got with
this lime.

So Roman structures, obviously several of these structures are still standing and people
have actually looked at the performance characteristics of this lime mortar and they find
its actually of a very high quality.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:23)

In India also, there are several evidences from the past, where lime was actually mixed
with other additives like ground brick for instance. The brick itself when you grind into a
red powder, it enhances the properties when you actually mix it to make the lime mortar,
and that was one of the first uses of additive materials into the lime. Later on, in Greece
and in Italy, they started using volcanic ash and they saw that when you mix with lime, it
gave much higher strength and durability properties. So, that is where the word
pozzolana started coming into being, and even today when you actually buy cement, that
is a brand of cement which is called as Portland pozzolana cement. And this PPC, this
pozzolana is basically anything which is has reactive silica continent in it.

So, the earliest example was a use of volcanic ash and when you mix that with the lime,
it started producing a chemistry which was not seen with plain lime kind of structures.
Now of course, beyond that there is not too much of a development that took place until
about the 19 century and the 19 century is when cement came into being.
(Refer Slide Time: 19:29)

Cement basically has it is origin probably much before the 19 century. We have a great
scientist one of them Vicat and Vicat is something that you will come across later when
you actually do your lab class with cement. But that is not until the fifth semester.

So, basically Vicat essentially looked at some combinations of limestone which had a lot
of impurities in the form of clay in it and he saw that when you burn this limestone in
clay together, the resultant lime that you get is excellent with respect to it is binding
characteristics. But later people realize it is not lime that you are getting, you are actually
get something else you are getting cement. And the first person to realize this and
understand the marketing potential was Joseph Aspdin. Although he was not the inventor
per say of cement, but what he did was instead of calling it a lime, he called it as a
cement. He just called it as cement but he gave it a special name called Portland cement.

So, what is saw was when this material that is obtained by mixing limestone and clay
together, when it reacts with water, it results in the formation of a hard rock like
substance, and this rock was similar in appearance to a type of limestone that was found
in Dorset in the United Kingdom. So, from that Joseph Aspdin gave it the name as
Portland cement and this Portland name got stuck with people and people was still using
it today, in spite of the patent having been obtained in 1824, and probably patent must
have gone out 100 years ago may be.
The patent is no longer valid but we still call the cement as Portland cement, just like
when you photocopy something you say that I am going to Xerox something. Xerox is
not an English word; it is the name of the company that manufactured the earliest
photocopiers. But even today when you say you going to Xerox shop, I will challenge
you to actually find a Xerox copy machine; you are probably find some Japanese makes
like Minolta or sharp or canon or something like that.

So, that is the power of branding, as far as cement is concerned the brand is Portland and
even today in all bags of cement you see the name Portland, at least in India you see the
name Portland everywhere being still in use. So, modern cement is obviously produced
in sophisticated plants. If you go to a cement plants you will see the kind of control they
have on each and every process of manufacture, with which they are able to get a product
that has very low degree of variability and that can be used to actually engineer the
materials.

On the other hand, if you go to a kiln where the lime is produced, many of you may have
seen this while going by bus or train across rural areas. You see in this lime kilns that
people are not really controlling the process well enough. They just take the limestone
put it inside burn it to sometime and then take it out. They do not have a control on the
time temperature or the pressure maintained inside the kiln so on. As a result of which
you do not get a product that is controlled with respect to its characteristics, you may
have something that is highly variable.

On the other hand, cement, people have such control on the process that they can actually
get a product that is very highly controlled with respect to it is performance. Of course,
today we do not just use cement, we also use mineral and chemical additives and these
enhance the properties the concrete that we make with this cement, and this is something
you will learn a lot more with higher level courses in concrete.
(Refer Slide Time: 22:43)

So, concrete itself as a material has been used for several years, I would say 1000 of
years. But people did not know that it was called concrete earlier, concrete is just an
English word, which means a mixture of different things. So, here obviously we are
talking about mixing a binding material such as cement, we are mixing, water we are
mixing sand and we mixing stone to make the composite material which is otherwise
called concrete.

Today we do not really have any other material which can have the level of adaptability
cost effectiveness and durability as concrete, because of which concrete is still highly
popular, primarily, because of cost effectiveness. You cannot really build structures with
the same level of load carrying ability, as you can build with concrete in a reasonable
degree of cost.
(Refer Slide Time: 23:35)

So, people have built in plain concrete, there are several examples of plain concrete
structures. For example, this wall here which is retaining the soil and you have this drive
way on the right, which is again built with plain concrete. But there are obviously some
limitations as far as building and plain concrete is concerned. Concrete is a material
excellent in compression, but very poor in tension. What do you mean by compression
and tension? Compression is when you are applying the load on to the structure or on to
the material; tension is when you are pulling the structure apart.

So, concrete is not very good in tension and because of this you need to strengthen it in ,
and then strengthening in tension basically involves either using reinforcement like steel
which is a very good material when it comes to tensile strength or using structures where
you can optimize the shape. Like in the past people build with domes and arches. In such
cases, you allow the load path in such a way that only compression comes on to the
material, there is no tension at all in such cases.
(Refer Slide Time: 24:43)

For example, you may have seen pictures of these structures, the Pantheon Dome in Italy
and the Saint Peters Basilica in Vatican City, which have some form of lime concrete
used to create these massive slab structures on the top. These are basically dome shapes
slabs and which have waffle like opening to reduce the overall weight and you have even
a circle or opening in the end in the center to allow the light into the structure.

So, these are concrete structures, they were built with concrete; but not the concrete that
we know today. They did not use cement, obviously because cement did not come it to
being until the 19 century. This was built in the second century and of course St. Peter’s
basilica was in 17 century. So, they did not obviously use cement, they must have used
lime with or without some additives to make the concrete, which is basically mixing the
lime with water sand and stone. So, with the dome or an arch, you do not really get any
tension. You only have compression, because of which the material is able to with stand
quite easily.
(Refer Slide Time: 25:45)

But when you go towards other forms, when you go towards more rectangular forms that
we are used to seeing in construction, you need to start putting steel to reinforce the
concrete. Now you can see from this picture provided in the left, the typical scenario for
reinforced concrete construction, you have the formwork which is the wooden part on
the outside which provides the shape to the concrete structure. And then the
reinforcement that is put inside the formwork and then you put concrete into this entire
segment to ensure that the concrete completely envelops the steel. Because if you leave
steel exposed to the atmosphere what will happen?

Student: That will.

That will corrode, so concrete has to cover the steel and entirely envelop it. But you only
provide steel wherever the structure needs resistance against tensile loading, where there
is only compression you do not have to worry about providing steel. You only provide
steel where tension occurs in the reinforced concrete structure. So, reinforced concrete
has given us a vast extent of possibilities which can define different types of shapes,
different types of optimized uses and so on of the material combinations.
(Refer Slide Time: 26:57)

This is a typical example of reinforced concrete building. So, frame construction is

something that started happening, when people realize the potential of reinforced
concrete. A frame construction simply means you built the vertical that is the columns
and the horizontal members that is the beams. You just build a frame out of the columns
and the beams and then you infill the walls later, of course beams also implies that you
are having the floor slab built along with the beams.

So, frame is your column, beam and the slabs which are the horizontal members, and
later you fill in the space between the columns, is the wall and this wall can be filled up
later. So, in this process what is different from a conventional masonry construction? In a
conventional masonry the load is taken by the.

Student: Wall.

Wall; load is taken by the walls. In the case of a reinforce concrete frame construction
the load will be taken by the slab beam and column. The walls will be non functional
with respect to load carrying ability. But they will be functional with respect to providing
weather proofing, obviously because they are preventing the outer environment from
completely entering inside.

So, you have the wall primarily as a separator of the building from the environment. So,
this gives you possibilities of using unconventional materials as far as the wall is
concerned. And today if you go out to see real construction projects, you will see that the
wall is now being build with concretes like light weight concrete or aerated concrete.
Why is that interesting? Because if you put air inside concrete, if you make it highly
porous, the flow of heat and sound through concrete is increased or reduced?

Student: Reduced.

It is reduced, because heat gets conducted much easily through a solid than through a
porous material. So, introduced voids and gaps inside your concrete makes the heat flow
much reduced. If you doing interior air conditioning, obviously it retains that coolness
inside much better rather than losing out this coolness to the outside. So, you can use
combinations of different types of materials which are providing these interesting
functional characteristics inside the structure, because, now you have completely
eliminated the need to make walls very strong.

But only problem is that people realized that this is cutting down on the productivity,
because you make the frame but the wall takes its own time in getting hardened and then
build up.

(Refer Slide Time: 29:27)

So, because of that people started moving to the next stage, that is building walls also
with concrete with solid concrete and this increased the speed at which the construction
could be done. Now you can have a formwork system around the entire structure, you
just fill up your concrete as soon as some level of hardening of the concrete happens you
lift up this formwork and build the next level, and this way you can go from floor to floor
much faster. If you go to any of the high rise residential buildings that are being
constructed in the city, you will see that this is the system that we adopt, where even the
wall has the same concrete that goes on the column and the beam.

So, because now you do not need to worry about other materials, you just need to speed
up your project by using the same material throughout the structure. Of course, there is a
disadvantage here that your walls are not going to be as efficient anymore as before.
Earlier with the frame construction you had the choice of choosing different types of
materials for the wall, which could reduce the heat loading of the structure.

But here, you are building everything in concrete, so it is probably not a great idea. But
then it speeds up the construction extensively, and you can now produce or you can you
finish buildings in a matter of a few months, where you earlier take more than a year or
probably up to 2 years. The same level of building can be filled up or can be constructed
in probably half the time.

(Refer Slide Time: 30:45)

Moving on from this technology of using concrete walls, you can now create almost
entire segments of concrete, like entire room can be actually fabricated all at once and
this is done by something like a tunnel form.
So, you see here as shown in this picture you have this tunnel form here. All you do is
fill up the concrete into the walls and also into the slabs at the same time. So, concrete
goes with the walls and the top slab at the same time and you simply buildup one level
over the other, so that is called a tunnel form construction. Once again very popular
means of building very fast especially with respect to high rise buildings, for apartment
buildings and so on.

(Refer Slide Time: 31:29)

Now, when you slow down your process because you need to marry steel and concrete,
what you can also do is try to look for methodologies by which you can strengthen the
concrete itself and make it respond in a positive way against tensile loads. This is being
accomplished by the use of prestressed concrete. You will learn later about what
prestressing is and how actually it increases the load carrying capacity of concrete. But
overall, this prestress concrete belongs to a segment of concretes called as precast
concrete.

Now what is precasting, that means without really assembling the concrete or shaping
the concrete on the side, I already make the components of concrete in a factory, I bring
them to the site and simply stitch them together and that is called precast concrete. The
advantage I get from precast construction is that I can control the quality a lot better as
factory is making these components. On site there are so many different people who can
actually spoil the appearance. The workmen need not be well trained because of which
the final appearance of the structure could be spoiled.

But I do not have that issue with the precast structure, where I build in components in
the factory, it come to the site, and then simply assemble them, stack them up, connect
them properly and so on. So, prestressed and precast concrete construction is actually
responsible for a lot of our infrastructure construction today, including your Chennai
metro rail, and the figure on the right basically is a example of a Chennai metro rail
construction where you have these piers and you have these precast segments that are
taken up and put next to each other. All you do is simply put a steel through it and stretch
this steel and press the concrete in compression. So, what are you doing here you are
applying a precompression to the concrete that is why it is called a prestressing
operation.

Now, when you use the same in slabs, you can get a structure like this which is shown on
your left. But you have the column and the slab directly on top, there is no beams in this
case. So, you are strengthening the slab by prestressing it, so you do not need the slab to
transfer the load to the beam any more. You can have the slab transfer the load directly
onto the column. What are the advantages like this? you get much higher floor area
rooms. You get lot more room in the floor which can help you put your false ceiling and
have a much better efficiency with respect to your air conditioning.

So, a lot of advantages when they move from one material to the other, but at the same
time when we use the same material in different kinds of applications with different
kinds of methodologies we can actually totally open up a wide range of possibilities.
(Refer Slide Time: 34:11)

Now, today the limit of this possibility is printing of the concrete itself. Now in
manufacturing industry and in medical industry, a lot of the components are actually 3D
printed. What you mean by that?

The deposition of the material is done layer by layer to build up the entire material. So,
these days even tends which they put to clear blocks inside your arteries, even those can
be 3D printed to the most optimal shape desired and send inside the arteries to remove
the blocks. Similarly people who started realizing that lot of the machine tools, the
common way of actually machining is to go to the workshops, start using these cutting
machines to shape it and then use the filing machine to ensure that it gives the correct
dimensions and so on and so forth.

But now what you are doing is, instead of actually taking a large block and cutting, you
are taking small layers and printing on top of the layers to build up the entire module. So,
this aspect was taken up in construction also. Primarily, from the beginning, the idea was
what do we do when we encounter terrains where you cannot simply provide sufficient
material for construction, where conventional construction will not do, like if we
establish a base on the moon, where do we take the materials to start constructing on the
moon?

So, can we send an instrument out there with the required mix of concrete inside that
which can simply go and start printing on the surface of the moon without having the
need to put the workers and carry a lot of material out there. So, that was the origin of
this idea and people who started experimenting with this to a large extend. So, there are
several different people who were actually doing 3D printing around the world, some
examples have given here like the Contour Crafting operation there is Total Kustom in
US.

So, you can see what happens in this case, the concrete mix is spread inside the printer
and the nozzles simply prints a layer of concrete and then deposits one more layer and
one more layer and so on. So, what is the advantage here? The advantage here is, in the
past when we have to make with concrete, you had to put formwork. I showed you that
in one of the previous pictures this formwork that you have on the site. Now it is
estimated this formwork actually takes up nearly about 20 to 30 percent of the cost of
your construction and nearly 60 percent of the time where it takes to actually build the
concrete structure.

Why it is takes so long because, it has to be assembled and after the concrete has
hardened it needs to be disassembled. Now that time can really eat up into the
productivity of your entire project. So, that is why people think that 3D printing can
provide a means of actually much faster construction projects. And so there are several
attempts around the world where people have looked at 3D printing, there are some
commercial successes also. People have actually produced smaller scale buildings and
hotels with this and of course, there is one example of a Chinese company which does
this 3D printing.
(Refer Slide Time: 37:01)

So, they prefabricate these 3D printed components in the factory, you can see how this
the arm of this printers move and deposit concrete layer by layer and that is the finish
structure on the right. Each and every wall is finished on the right and transported to site
where it is basically simply connected together. The question is, what is the advantage of
doing this when you as well do a precasting in the factory and then go and connect on the
site. Again, the advantage is, when you do the precast you will have to use a formwork,
here you are totally avoiding this formwork.

(Refer Slide Time: 37:39)

In IIT Madras also we have done significant work on 3D printing. If you have visited the
ground floor of the BSB, you can actually see the India’s first 3D printed concrete
structure, which is basically a modular 3D print. We did modules of 30 centimeters and
then connected them using mortar.

So almost like connecting blocks, but with the printer that we had to print, that seen on
the left here, we couldnot build modules which were more than 30 centimeters. So, we
had to build 30 centimeter modules and then connect them. Now we are actually
producing another structure which is much larger than this and which can be printed
almost up to height of about 1.5 meters without the need for connecting modules.

So, there is a lot more possibilities in this realm and definitely by the time you guys are
done with your bachelor’s degree, there will be a lot more construction in the world
which is being accomplished by 3D printing of concrete.

(Refer Slide Time: 38:33)

I will just show you very quickly some iconic structures which show why these materials
have been very popular. So, wood obviously it has been a popular construction material,
it has got excellent tensile properties and because of that extreme efficient as the building
material.

If you go to the western, in countries like the US or Canada you will see often that
people walk into the these large stores and buy their own wood and construct their own
house themselves because wood can be shaped and jointed quiet easily if you have
learned the of basics of carpentry, and the joints are quiet strong. Wood is excellent in
tension, because of which you do not really need very sophisticated engineering to do
wooden houses.

So, wood is still a very highly preferred material of construction in those country. Only
problem is of course, moisture and fire resistance and biological growth or some of the
issues which can bring down this life of the wooden structure.

(Refer Slide Time: 39:23)

Then you have masonry, which is commonly seen in many of our bridges. You see some
examples of excellent masonry bridges from Europe. Of course, with masonry again
poor tensile strength could be a factor that effects the usage and biological growth you
would have seen in many masonry structures, even plants and trees growing through the
structure, because again you have porous mortar which is filling up this space between
the bricks and the brick itself is basically soil, it is derive from soil. So, if it absorbs
moisture, obviously biological growth can take place within the brick also.
(Refer Slide Time: 39:55)

Bridges and steel; most of our railway bridges are in steel, a lot of iconic bridges around
the world are in steel, one of the bridges which is iconic as per as India is concerned is
one at the bottom. What is this?

Student: Howrah Bridge

The Howrah bridge in Kolkata, it is very popular bridge.

(Refer Slide Time: 40:11)

The bridge on the top left is the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, again another
popular iconic bridge, and you have the Sydney Harbour Bridge on the bottom right, you
see that every time during new years when they put the fire crackers.

(Refer Slide Time: 40:27)

Concrete bridges again you see them all over the world, the top left picture is from a very
popular movie that you have seen.

Student: Harry Potter

Harry Potter; this is basically the Glenfinnan viaduct in Scotland and then you have the
Multnomah Falls footbridge in Oregon US. You can see the kind of difficulties they must
have had in actually assembling this kind of a structure in that place.
(Refer Slide Time: 40:51)

Then you have of course, Confederation Bridge in Canada.

(Refer Slide Time: 40:53)

And you have the great link bridge in Denmark Sweden, which is actually an extensively
long bridge. It also converts into a tunnel in between. So, the road basically goes on a
bridge and gets into the tunnel and then comes out again in a bridge. The Millau viaduct
in France is a very popular structure that people often put in their presentations.
(Refer Slide Time: 41:15)

Again, these are more bridges from the US.

(Refer Slide Time: 41:17)

Composite bridges; so, composites basically ensure that we can get the best out of two
different materials by utilizing their strengths. For example, if you combine concrete and
steel concrete is good in compression steel is good in tension. So, you provide reinforced
concrete which is an excellent composite material. But now we are not just stopping
there we are also using other materials like fibre. Fibre reinforced materials; fibres
basically provided at a very small scale, they provide excellent tensile resistance and
because of which fibre reinforced structures have a much better potential of resisting
dynamic loading like earthquake for instance and also can perform a lot better than non
fibre reinforced structure.

For example, here this is a storm water channel bridge in the US; you can see here glass
fibre reinforced polymer deck which is used to actually construct this bridge. These are
basically shells of carbon fibre which are then filled with lightweight concrete to be used
as girder. So, concrete strength there does not really matter as much because, the carbon
fibre provides an excellent strength in the direction of bending and the concrete simply
envelops this fibre and ensures that a proper matrix is made. What is a naturally
occurring composites structure that you are familiar with?

Wood is a naturally existing composites structure. Why do I say it is a composite

structure, if you look in the structure of wood you have the fibres of cellulose which are
embedded in the matrix of lignin. So, the fibres along this direction of the fibres, when
you try to stretch wood it has excellent tensile characteristics. So, wood is a naturally
existing composites structure.

(Refer Slide Time: 43:07)

Of course, wood has been used in several iconic buildings in India also like this
Padmanabhapuram palace in Kerala, and brick masonry of course is also all over the
place, especially with our heritage monuments that you see in Chennai, a lot of brick
masonry is used.
(Refer Slide Time: 43:21)

The best example of stone masonry is the Qutab Minar. With concrete you have several
examples around the world like the Petronas twin towers.

(Refer Slide Time: 43:31)

Another interesting example obviously is the Burj Khalifa; Burj Khalifa is not entirely
concrete, the first 600 meters is in concrete the remaining 200 plus meters is in steel. An
interesting fact about this is that the 600 meters of concrete cost less than the 200 meters
of steel. The 200 meters of steel on the top has no purpose with respect to people. The
600 meters of concrete is where all the people are because up to 200 and something
stories you have until that level. This also has a very interesting record with respect to
concrete technology; this is the highest level to which concrete was pumped from the
ground.

So, concrete was mixed at the ground and pumped all the way up to 600 meters and
delivered for the construction of the highest level of concrete in this building. But what
happens when you start constructing these tall buildings. What is the governing factor, is
it stability any more or is it strength?

Student: stability.

Stability against wind, lateral loads; when you start constructing tall you need to start
thinking about designing against lateral loads. Not just wind, even earthquake for
instance you need to have essentially components of design built which can take care of
these loads. Another interesting aspect about Burj Khalifa, of course it came much after
the downing of the twin towers in New York by Osama Bin Laden. What happened
there, those structures were made with what material.

Student: steel.

Steel, those were steel frame structures, just like the one on the right that is sears tower in
Chicago, another iconic building. So, world trade center in New York, the twin tower,
were actually steel frame structure. So, when one floor gave way the rest of them simply
collapsed. Progressive collapse is something that they did not actually design for in the
World Trade Center buildings. But as far as Burj Khalifa is concerned even that has been
take into account.

So if a progressive collapse happens, for example at this level here the structure may
collapse, but it will stop collapsing at this point here, you can see this massive raft that is
being provided. So, that basically cuts off one segment of the building from the other and
prevents the entire building to collapse right one on top of another, just like the World
Trade Center trade. So, we adapt we learn from our past problems, of course nobody
could have thought about an airline crashing into our building, that is something totally
unthinkable, no nobody is designing for that. But nevertheless we adapt and we learn
from our past to try and build something different.
(Refer Slide Time: 46:09)

So today of course, lot of glasses also being used in structures, glasses and steel are
popular choices with respect to your high profile structures.

(Refer Slide Time: 46:17)

Even Guggenheim museum in Bilbao in Spain, is titanium clad steel and limestone
which combined together gave this very interesting sort of an appearances.
(Refer Slide Time: 46:27)

And of course, dams in concrete, you see several hundreds of them all across the world.

(Refer Slide Time: 46:31)

So, where are we going from here? We have looked at how materials and construction
practices evolved. How different materials led to various types of performance and
functional characteristics and how we will be limited by characteristics of one material to
ensure that we could overcome that by choice of combinations of that material with one
another one so on. So, what is the challenges that we have for the future one, primary
challenge is that our resources are going down.
We have dwindling resources, especially if you think about cement which is the most
commonly used binding material in the world. Manufacture of cement utilizes vast
quantities of limestone from around the world, and it is estimated that if we continue to
produce cement in the same rate we will run out of those limestone reserves probably in
50 to 100 years. That means, there won’t be any cement beyond that and so people have
started looking at alternatives to using cement in concrete.

So, alternative materials is something that we need to wake up to the possibility of and
start thinking about utilizing as much as possible. In most cases what happens is the
construction materials are highly heterogeneous, because I am primarily talking here
about concrete which is the most commonly used construction material. This
heterogeneity leads to an accompanying unpredictability. We cannot really model these
materials well enough and because of that we cannot predict how long they will with
stand a particular set of loading and environmental condition.

Steel on the other hand we are much more capable of understanding, because it behaves
in a very specific fashion. Steel components are factory produced, when they come to the
site all you need to do is connect them. The characteristics of the steel are governed by
how it is produced in the factory.

Concrete on the other hand, a lot of it is applied or directly made on the site and because
of which a lot of variability is introduced into the formulation of concrete. Increasing life
span of materials and service life of structures, generally says that there should be some
aspects that we need to look at from point of your modeling these materials. I said that
heterogeneity leads to difficulties in modeling, but then we need to model because we
cannot keep on testing to ensure that the material is safe.

We can think about how to generate well excepted models which can be applied to the
study of structures over the long term, and choosing sustainable options is something that
is becoming very important today, because we are using lot of resources and we are
using the lot of the energy. We need to choose technologies that can minimize on these.
So, tomorrow when you become engineers you will start hearing of these terms more
often.
(Refer Slide Time: 48:57)

Carbon credits is one term that you will hear of quiet often, Green rating, Embodied
energy, Life cycle assessment, it is not no longer going to be strength, durability and
workability.

You will start thinking about how to make the technology in such a way that your carbon
credits are obtained; you can reduce the embodied energy in the structure, get a green
rating for your building and have numbers with respect to life cycle assessment. So,
these cannot be just buzzwords they get the true meaning of these to really implement
these in construction.
(Refer Slide Time: 49:33)

So, with that I would like to just end by saying that we obviously had a very exciting
stage with respect to the kind of applications we have with conventional materials and
with new materials coming in, which can strengthen our understanding of existing
construction technologies. People used to mock civil engineering and say it is a brick and
mortar profession, but the vast variety of materials and the construction process that we
use clearly shows that civil engineering is no longer a brick and mortar profession.

So, thank you.