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PREFACE:

Building material is any material which is used for a construction purpose. Apart from naturally occurring materials, many man-made products are in use. The manufacture of building materials is an established industry in many countries and the use of these materials is typically segmented into specific specialty trades, such as carpentry, plumbing, roofing and insulation work. This new book presents a wide variety of research on issues facing the building industry today. A study on the use of syntactic foams as a building material is presented. 

The acoustic performance of building materials with respect to their insulative properties is also analyzed. Other topics include the performance of building stones in relation to salt weathering, the behavior of building materials submitted to fire, the problem of microbe invasion into building materials and a study to develop a series of experimental methods to determine the moisture transport and storage properties of building materials. Chapter 1 - Syntactic foams as building materials are studied. Various manufacturing parameters contributing to syntactic foam composition in relation with the ‘pre-mould’ method were identified and inter-related.

 An equation based on lattice unit cell models with the minimum inter-microsphere distance concept for a relation between volume expansion rate of bulk microspheres in aqueous starch and microsphere size was derived and successfully used to predict experimental data. A simple method for estimation of syntactic foam density prior to completion of manufacture was suggested. 

Shrinkage of syntactic foam precursor was discussed in relation with different stages such as slurry, dough and solid. Also, the ‘post-mould’ buoyancy method involving mixing starch particles and ceramic hollow microspheres in water is discussed in relation with composition and properties.

 It was found that starch particles tend to adhere to hollow microspheres during mixing, forming agglomerations. A transition in the formation ofmixture volumes in water was found to take place at a calculated relative density value of 1 for an agglomerate consisting of multiple starch particles and one microsphere.

 A Simple Cubic cell model for the starch-microsphere inter-distance was adopted to quantitatively explain various effects on starch content in agglomeration such as hollow microsphere size, initial bulk volume of hollow microspheres and water volume. Further, the following were found for syntactic foams: (a) volume fraction of starch in foam is of linear relation with starch content in binder for a given experimental data range and (b) shrinkage of syntactic foam precursor is relatively high for small hollow microspheres with high starch content.

 Compressive failure behaviour and mechanical properties of the manufactured foams were evaluated. Not much difference in failure behaviour or in mechanical properties between the two different (pre- and post-mould).

methods was found for a given binder content in syntactic foam. Compressive failure of all syntactic foams was of shear on plane inclined 45° to compressive loading direction. Failure surfaces of most syntactic foams were characterised by debonded microspheres. Compressive strength and modulus of syntactic foams were found to be dependant mainly on binder content but independent of microsphere size.

 Some conditions of relativity arising from properties of constituents leading to the rule of mixtures relationships for compressive strength and to understanding of compressive/transitional failure behaviour were developed. The developed relationships based on the rule of mixtures were partially verified. Novel sandwich composites made of syntactic foam core and paper skin were developed. Interface bonding between syntactic foam coreand paper skin was controlled by varying starch content. Two different microsphere size groups were employed for syntactic foam core manufacturing. Properties of skin paper with starch adhesive on were found to be affected by drying time of starch adhesive. 

Skin paper contributed to increase up to 40% in estimated flexural strength over syntactic foams, depending on starch content in adhesive between syntactic foam core and paper skin.

 Small microsphere size group for syntactic foam core was found to be advantageous in strengthening of sandwich composites for a given starch content in adhesive. This finding was in agreement withcalculated values of estimated shear stress at interface between paper skin and foam core. Failure process of the sandwich composites was discussed in relation with load-deflection curves. Hygroscopic behaviour of syntactic foam panels was investigated. Moisture content in syntactic foam was measured to be high for high starch content in syntactic foam panels. No significant moisture effect on flexural strength syntactic foam panels after being subjected to moisture about two months was found. However, substantial decrease in flexural modulus was found for syntactic foam panels made of large microspheres although not much moisture effect was found on that of small microspheres. 

Chapter 2 - Soluble salts are one of the main decay agents of building materials, affecting both natural and man-made products applied in old and new constructions, endangering cultural significant structures and thwarting the performance of materials in new buildings. Salts could promote erosive decay (provoking loss of material, mainly by physical action but there are also references to chemical attack) and could also contribute to the formation of coatings, such as the (in)famous "black crusts". 

The present review will be focused on the response to salt pollution microscopic of macroscopic features of natural building stones, considering predictions of theoretical models, results of simulation experiments and field observations. 

Several types of rocks (igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic) will be considered, in order to gain information on the influence of textural, mineral-chemical and structural aspects, such as grainsize, mineralogical composition (specially relevant to understand chemical susceptibility), presence of heterogeneities, natural anisotropy surfaces (such as bedding) and previous weathering state of the stones (weathering state when extracted from the quarry, before application, an aspect thatis particularly relevant for igneous rocks, specially granites, since it affects properties, such as porosity and capillary rise kinetics, that control migration of salt solutions and influence the crystallization position of soluble salts). 

It is hoped that this review will contribute to identify susceptible geological features that affect the performance of building stones in relation to salt weathering and, in this way, contribute to the discussion on the basis for recommendations about selection of building stone, in relation to foreseeable salt contamination conditions.

Chapter 3 - In this chapter, the Boltzmann Transport Equations (BTE) is used to formulate the transport laws for equilibrium and irreversible thermodynamics and these BTE equations are suitable for analyzing system performance that are associated with systems ranging from macro to micro dimensions.

 In this regard, particular attention is paid to analyze the energetic processes in adsorption phenomena as well as in semiconductors from the view point of irreversible thermodynamics. The continuity equations for (i) gaseous flow at adsorption surface, and (ii) electrons, holes and phonons movements in the semiconductor structures are studied.

 The energy and entropy balances equations of (i) the adsorption system for macro cooling, and (ii) the thermoelectric device for micro cooling are derived that lead to expressions for entropy generation and system’s bottlenecks.

 The BTE equation is applied to model the adsorption cooling processes for single-stage, multi-stage and multi-bed systems, and the simulated results are compared with experimental data. This chapter also presents a thermodynamic framework for the estimation of the minimum driving heat source temperature of an advanced adsorption cooling device from the rigor of Boltzmann distribution function. From this thermodynamic analysis, an interesting and useful finding has been established that it is possible to develop an adsorption cooling device as a green and sustainable technology that operates with a driving heat source temperature of near ambient. Moreover, the Onsager relations are applied to model the thermoelectric transport equations and, after coupling with Gibbs law and BTE, the temperature-entropy flux derivations are further developed and presented the energetic performances of thermoelectric cooling systems.

 Chapter 4 - Microbes – including bacteria, fungi, algae and lichen – are successful invaders of all types of building materials in indoor and outdoor environment on modern and historic buildings.

 With respect to the numerous problems caused by biogenic spoilage and deterioration of building materials our contribution will present (a) the most important groups of chemoheterotrophic and chemolithotrophic bacteria, cyanobacteria, fungi and lichens occurring on rock, plaster, mortar, paint coatings, plaster board and other building materials; (b) the mechanisms and destruction phenomena caused by microbes ranging from mere esthetical spoilage to significant material losses (c) the environmental factors – humidity, ventilation, nutrient availability - enhancing or inhibiting microbial growth, (d) the state of the art methods for detection and analysis  of biodeteriorative organisms and processes especially highlighting the molecular techniques as e.g. genetic fingerprinting of microbial communities and single microbialspecies (DGGE, RFLP) or quantification ofmicrobes in materials by real time PCR, (e) possible strategies for antimicrobial treatments and preventive measures with focus on pros and cons of hydrophobic treatments, nano-technology based paint coatings and novel disinfectants. 

The contribution will aim to researchers in the fields of material sciences and building physics as well as to practitioner of building industries, thus descriptions on microbiology and molecular techniques will be given on a high quality but generally understandable level. Chapter 5 - Moisture accumulation within the material of a building envelope can lead to poor thermal performance of the envelope, degradation of organic materials, metal corrosion and structure deterioration.