Structural material

Structural engineering depends on the knowledge of materials and their properties, in order to understand how different materials resist and support loads. Common structural materials are:

Iron

Wrought iron

Wrought iron is the simplest form of iron, and is almost pure iron (typically less than 0.15% carbon). It usually contains some slag. Its uses are almost entirely obsolete, and it is no longer commercially produced. Wrought iron is very poor in fires. It is ductile, malleable and tough. It does not corrode as easily as steel.

Cast iron

Cast iron is a brittle form of iron which is weaker in tension than in compression. It has a relatively low melting point, good fluidity, castability, excellent machinability and wear resistance. Though almost entirely replaced by steel in building structures, cast irons have become an engineering material with a wide range of applications, including pipes, machine and car parts. Cast iron retains high strength in fires, despite its low melting point. It is usually around 95% iron, with between 2.1% and 4% carbon and between 1% and 3% silicon. It does not corrode as easily as steel.

Steel

Steel is an iron alloy with controlled level of carbon (between 0.0 and 1.7% carbon). Steel is used extremely widely in all types of structures, due to its relatively low cost, high strength-to-weight ratio and speed of construction. Steel is a ductile material, which will behave elastically until it reaches yield (point 2 on the stress–strain curve), when it becomes plastic and will fail in a ductile manner (large strains, or extensions, before fracture at point 3 on the curve). Steel is equally strong in tension and compression. Steel is weak in fires, and must be protected in most buildings. Despite its high strength to weight ratio, steel buildings have as much thermal mass as similar concrete buildings. The elastic modulus of steel is approximately 205 GPa. Steel is very prone to corrosion (rust).

Stainless steel

Stainless steel is an iron-carbon alloy with a minimum of 10.5% chromium content. There are different types of stainless steel, containing different proportions of iron, carbon, molybdenum, nickel. It has similar structural properties to steel, although its strength varies significantly. It is rarely used for primary structure, and more for architectural finishes and building cladding. It is highly resistant to corrosion and staining.

Concrete

Concrete is used extremely widely in building and civil engineering structures, due to its low cost, flexibility, durability, and high strength. It also has high resistance to fire. Concrete is a non-linear, non-elastic and brittle material. It is strong in compression and very weak in tension. It behaves non-linearly at all times. Because it has essentially zero strength in tension, it is almost always used as reinforced concrete, a composite material. It is a mixture of sand, aggregate, cement and water. It is placed in a mould, or form, as a liquid, and then it sets (goes off), due to a chemical reaction between the water and cement. The hardening of the concrete is called hydration. The reaction is exothermic (gives off heat). Concrete increases in strength continually from the day it is cast. Assuming it is not cast under water or in constantly 100% relative humidity, it shrinks over time as it dries out, and it deforms over time due to a phenomenon called creep. Its strength depends highly on how it is mixed, poured, cast, compacted, cured (kept wet while setting), and whether or not any admixtures were used in the mix. It can be cast into any shape that a form can be made for. Its colour, quality, and finish depend upon the complexity of the structure, the material used for the form, and the skill of the worker. The elastic modulus of concrete can vary widely and depends on the concrete mix, age, and quality, as well as on the type and duration of loading applied to it. It is usually taken as approximately 25 GPa for long-term loads once it has attained its full strength (usually considered to be at 28 days after casting). It is taken as approximately 38 GPa for very short-term loading, such as footfalls. Concrete has very favourable properties in fire – it is not adversely affected by fire until it reaches very high temperatures. It also has very high mass, so it is good for providing sound insulation and heat retention (leading to lower energy requirements for the heating of concrete buildings). This is offset by the fact that producing and transporting concrete is very energy intensive. To study the material behavior plenty of numerical models were developed, e.g. the microplane model for constitutive laws of materials.

Reinforced concrete

Reinforced concrete is concrete in which steel reinforcement bars ("rebars"), plates or fibers have been incorporated to strengthen a material that would otherwise be brittle. In industrialised countries, nearly all concrete used in construction is reinforced concrete. Due to its weakness in tension capacity, concrete will fail suddenly and in brittle manner under flexural (bending) or tensile force unless adequately reinforced with steel.

Prestressed concrete

Prestressed concrete is a method for overcoming the concrete's natural weakness in tension. It can be used to produce beams, floors or bridges with a longer span than is practical with ordinary reinforced concrete. Prestressing tendons (generally of high tensile steel cable or rods) are used to provide a clamping load which produces a compressive stress that offsets the tensile stress that the concrete compression member would otherwise experience due to a bending load.

Aluminium

Aluminium is a soft, lightweight, malleable metal. The yield strength of pure aluminium is 7–11 MPa, while aluminium alloys have yield strengths ranging from 200 MPa to 600 MPa. Aluminium has about one-third the density and stiffness of steel. It is ductile, and easily machined, cast, and extruded. Corrosion resistance is excellent due to a thin surface layer of aluminium oxide that forms when the metal is exposed to air, effectively preventing further oxidation. The strongest aluminium alloys are less corrosion resistant due to galvanic reactions with alloyed copper. Aluminium is used in some building structures (mainly in facades) and very widely in aircraft engineering because of its good strength to weight ratio. It is a relatively expensive material. In aircraft it is gradually being replaced by carbon composite materials.

Composites

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