Flashcards: Building materials

Sealant is a substance used to block the passage of fluids through the surface or joints or openings in materials, a type of mechanical seal.

Adobe (US /əˈdoʊbi/, UK /əˈdoʊb/; Spanish: [aˈðoβe], ultimately from Coptic via Arabic) is a building material made from earth and often organic material.

Manure is organic matter, mostly derived from animal feces except in the case of green manure, which can be used as organic fertilizer in agriculture.

Building material is any material which is used for construction purposes.

A cement is a binder, a substance used in construction that sets and hardens and can bind other materials together.

Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula CaSO4·2H2O.

A gabion (from Italian gabbione meaning "big cage"; from Italian gabbia and Latin cavea meaning "cage") is a cage, cylinder, or box filled with rocks, concrete, or sometimes sand and soil for use in civil engineering, road building, military applications and landscaping.

Laterite is a soil and rock type rich in iron and aluminium, and is commonly considered to have formed in hot and wet tropical areas.

Cement mortar becomes hard when it cures, resulting in a rigid aggregate structure; however the mortar is intended to be weaker than the building blocks and the sacrificial element in the masonry, because the mortar is easier and less expensive to repair than the building blocks.

Plaster is a building material used for the protective and/or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for moulding and casting decorative elements.

Prestressed concrete is a concrete construction material which is placed under compression prior to it supporting any applied loads (i.e. it is "pre" stressed).

Slag is the glass-like by-product left over after a desired metal has been separated (i.e., smelted) from its raw ore.

Fiberboard (American spelling) or fibreboard (Commonwealth spelling) is a type of engineered wood product that is made out of wood fibers.

A primer (/ˈpraɪmər/) or undercoat is a preparatory coating put on materials before painting.

A chain-link fence (also referred to as wire netting, wire-mesh fence, chain-wire fence, cyclone fence, hurricane fence, or diamond-mesh fence) is a type of woven fence usually made from galvanized or LLDPE-coated steel wire.

Siding and wall cladding is the exterior material applied to the walls of a house or other building meant to shed water, protect the walls from the effects of weather, insulate, and is a key in the aesthetics of the structure.

A sandwich panel is a structure made of three layers: low density core inserted in between two relatively thin skin layers.

Welded wire mesh, or welded wire fabric, or "weldmesh" is an electric fusion welded prefabricated joined grid consisting of a series of parallel longitudinal wires with accurate spacing welded to cross wires at the required spacing.

Calcium hydroxide, traditionally called slaked lime, is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula Ca(OH)2.

Lime is a calcium-containing inorganic material in which carbonates, oxides, and hydroxides predominate.

Sand is a naturally occurring granular material composed of finely divided rock and mineral particles.

In metallurgy, stainless steel, also known as inox steel or inox from French inoxydable, is a steel alloy with a minimum of 10.

Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) is a fluorine-based plastic.

Fiber-reinforced concrete (FRC) is concrete containing fibrous material which increases its structural integrity.

A tile is a manufactured piece of hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, or even glass, generally used for covering roofs, floors, walls, showers, or other objects such as tabletops.

Mineral wool is a general name for fiber materials that are formed by spinning or drawing molten minerals (or "synthetic minerals" such as slag and ceramics).

Artificial stone is a name for various kinds of synthetic stone products used from the 18th century onward.

Formstone is a type of stucco commonly applied to brick rowhouses in many East Coast urban areas in the United States, although it is most strongly associated with Baltimore.

Engineered wood, also called composite wood, man-made wood, or manufactured board, includes a range of derivative wood products which are manufactured by binding or fixing the strands, particles, fibers, or veneers or boards of wood, together with adhesives, or other methods of fixation to form composite materials.

Building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) are photovoltaic materials that are used to replace conventional building materials in parts of the building envelope such as the roof, skylights, or facades.

Melamine resin or melamine formaldehyde (also shortened to melamine) is a hard, thermosetting plastic material made from melamine and formaldehyde by polymerization.

Building insulation materials are the building materials which form the thermal envelope of a building or otherwise reduce heat transfer.

Visqueen is a brand of polyethylene plastic sheeting (typically Low-density polyethylene) produced by British Polythene Industries Limited.

A roof coating is a monolithic, fully adhered, fluid applied roofing membrane.

Dimension stone is natural stone or rock that has been selected and finished (i.e., trimmed, cut, drilled, ground, or other) to specific sizes or shapes.

Spray foam is a chemical product created by two materials, isocyanate and polyol resin, which react when mixed with each other and expand up to 30-60 times its liquid volume after it is sprayed in place.

Ready-mix concrete is concrete that is manufactured in a factory or batching plant, according to a set recipe, and then delivered to a work site by truck mounted in–transit mixers.