Moisture dynamics in brick, stone and concrete has a controlling influence on the durability and performance of the built environment. Water Transport in Brick, Stone and Concrete provides a unified description of transport processes involving saturated and unsaturated flow in porous inorganic materials and structures. It sets out fundamental physics and materials science, mathematical description and experimental measurement as a basis for engineering design and construction practice. Now in its third edition, the book combines a systematic presentation of the scientific and technical principles with new analyses of topics such as sorption isotherms, temperature dependence of sorptivity, time-dependent properties of cement-based materials, layered materials, air-trapping and driving rain. It serves as an authoritative reference for research workers, practising engineers and students of civil, building, architectural and materials engineering. Much of the fundamental work is relevant to engineers in soil science and geotechnics, as well as oilfield, chemical and process engineering.

This book provides a unified description of transport processes involving saturated and unsaturated flow in inorganic building materials and structures. It emphasizes fundamental physics and materials science, mathematical description, and experimental measurement as a basis for engineering design and construction practice. Water Transport in Brick, Stone and Concrete brings together in a unified manner current information and guidance on a complex subject. Durability of much of the built infrastructure depends on how water reacts with the construction material concerned, yet the underlying science of deterioration processes is not yet well understood. This book, by the two leading researchers in the field, will provide a central point of reference for the future. The second edition includes many references to new publications and gives new analyses of important topics in water transport, notably on the evaporation-driven moisture dynamics of built structures.

Comprehensive insight on moisture transport in cement-based materials by means of experimental investigations and computer simulations Moisture Storage and Transport in Concrete explores how moisture moves through cementitious materials, focusing on its absorption, storage, and distribution with the help of experimental investigations and computer simulations. The text discusses the different ways moisture moves, such as through vapor or capillary action, as well as how it affects the properties of cement-based materials, offering new insights and models to help understand and predict moisture behavior in these materials, which can be important for construction and maintenance. After a short introduction to the topic, the text is split into five parts. Part I covers surface energetic principles for moisture storage in porous materials. Part II explores real pore structure and calculation methods for composition parameters. Part III explains basic equations for the description of moisture transport. Part IV discusses experimental investigation results with regard to the modeling of moisture transport in concrete materials. Part V showcases modeling of moisture transport, taking into account sorption hysteresis and time-dependent material changes. Written by a highly qualified author, Moisture Storage and Transport in Concrete also includes discussion on: Dependence of surface energy of water on temperature, on relative humidity of air, and for aqueous salt solutions Calculation of the pore size dependent distribution of inner surfaces using the moisture storage function Temperature influence on the capillary transport coefficients and differences between capillary pressure and hydraulic external pressure Adsorption and desorption isotherms of the CEMI reference material and causes of differences between adsorption and desorption isotherms Sorption isotherms and scanning isotherms of hardened cement paste and concrete Moisture Storage and Transport in Concrete is an essential reference to help researchers and professionals to make informed decisions for the construction of concrete-based infrastructure, enabling them to avoid common issues such as corrosion of reinforcement steel, deterioration of concrete strength, and the growth of mold and mildew.

Many areas of knowledge converge in the building industry and therefore research in this field necessarily involves an interdisciplinary approach. Effective research requires strong relation between a broad variety of scientific and technological domains and more conventional construction or craft processes, while also considering advanced management processes, where all the main actors permanently interact. This publication takes an interdisciplinary approach grouping various studies on the building industry chosen from among the works presented for the 2nd International Conference on Construction and Building Research. The papers examine aspects of materials and building systems; construction technology; energy and sustainability; construction management; heritage, refurbishment and conservation. The information contained within these pages may be of interest to researchers and practitioners in construction and building activities from the academic sphere, as well as public and private sectors.

This bestselling book has been fully revised and updated to include valuable new case studies and examples which help to demonstrate the common problems found in older buildings. It features many additional photographs illustrating the decay mechanims and individual issues associated with damp, timber decay, masonry defects, roofing problems and many other aspects. The book begins by summarizing the basics of surveying practice, including the inspection, assessment, defect diagnosis and monitoring of defects. It then examines the building elements, discussing their construction, typical faults and their diagnoses. This section provides specific advice on assessing industrial monuments and features concise inspection checklists for ease of reference. In the final section, the author looks to the future, considering the specific challenges faced by property professionals when employed to survey historic buildings. The book is accompanied by comprehensive appendices, including sample survey forms, and a list of useful contacts is followed by an extensive bibliography. This book will be of particular interest to conservation officers, surveyors, architects, archaeologists and planners.

The principal aim of this book is to improve the practice of surveying traditionally constructed brickwork. It aims to ensure that those who have a cause to survey buildings constructed of traditional (pre-1919) brickwork have a well-developed, clear methodology for undertaking effective, comprehensive surveys. The book will help readers gain the proper level of knowledge, expertise and skill to be able to survey these buildings correctly; to recognise not just defects within the brickwork itself, but also, crucially, the cause of these defects. Experienced author Moses Jenkins presents a clear and concise methodology for the survey of brickwork in existing buildings with coverage including: identifying repair needs understanding the cause of decay within brickwork ascertaining the age and significance of traditionally constructed brickwork, and identifying significant technical and decorative features. Despite the extensive use of traditionally constructed brick worldwide, the knowledge and expertise to properly survey buildings of this type has not, to date, been laid out in a reliable and methodical way. This book addresses this deficiency and provides an invaluable resource to all those who survey and assess buildings constructed of brickwork. This includes building professionals such as architects, surveyors, engineers and those working in building conservation, but also construction managers and students studying built environment disciplines.

Scientific techniques developed in materials science offer invaluable information to archaeology, art history, and conservation. A rapidly growing number of innovative methods, as well as many established techniques, are constantly being improved and optimised for the analysis of cultural heritage materials. The result is that on the one hand more complex problems and questions can be confronted, but on the other hand the required level of technical competence is widening the existing cultural gap between scientists and end users, such as archaeologists, museum curators, art historians, and many managers of cultural heritage who have a purely humanistic background. The book is intended as an entry-level introduction to the methods and rationales of scientific investigation of cultural heritage materials, with emphasis placed on the analytical strategies, modes of operation, and resulting information rather than on technicalities. The extensive and updated reference list should be a useful starting point for further reading. Students and researchers from the humanities approaching scientific investigations should find it useful, as well as scientists applying familiar techniques and methods to unfamiliar problems related to cultural heritage.

The aim of this book is intended, through parallel expounding, to help readers comprehensively grasp the intrinsic features of typical advanced computational methods. These methods are created in recent three decades for the understanding of the post-failure of geo-materials accompanied with discontinuous and finite deformation/dislocation, as well as the violent fluid-structure interaction accompanied with strong distortion of water surface. The strong points and weak points of the formalisms for governing equations, the discretization schemes, the nodal interpolation /approximation of field variables, and their connectivity (via support domains, covers, or enrichments), the basic algorithms, etc., are clarified. Being aware of that the differences in these methods are not so large as at the first glance, this book will help readers to select appropriate methods, to improve the methods for their specific purpose, and to evaluate the reliability/applicability of the outcomes in the hazard evaluation of geotechnical (hydraulic) structures beyond extreme work situation. This book may be looked at as an advanced continuation of “Computational Geomechanics and Hydraulic Structures” by the author (2018) (Springer-Verlag, ISBN 978-981-10-8134-7) which elaborates the fundamental computational methods in geomechanics for the routine design of geotechnical (hydraulic) engineering.

This volume draws together topics and methodologies essential for the socio-cultural, mineralogical, and geochemical analysis of archaeological ceramic, one of the most complex and ubiquitous archaeomaterials in the archaeological record. It provides an invaluable resource for archaeologists, anthropologists, and archaeological materials scientists.

Note: New editions of this book have been published: the 2nd edition in 2012, the 3rd edition in 2017, and the 4th edition in September 2023. Bad experiences with construction quality, the energy crises of 1973 and 1979, complaints about 'sick buildings', thermal, acoustical, visual and olfactory discomfort, the move towards more sustainability, have all accelerated the development of a field, which until 35 years ago was hardly more than an academic exercise: building physics. Through the application of existing physical knowledge and the combination with information coming from other disciplines, the field helps to understand the physical performance of building parts, buildings and the built environment, and translates it into correct design and construction. This book is the result of thirty years teaching, research and consultancy activity of the author. The book discusses the theory behind the heat and mass transport in and through building components. Steady and non steady state heat conduction, heat convection and thermal radiation are discussed in depth, followed by typical building-related thermal concepts such as reference temperatures, surface film coefficients, the thermal transmissivity, the solar transmissivity, thermal bridging and the periodic thermal properties. Water vapour and water vapour flow and moisture flow in and through building materials and building components is analyzed in depth, mixed up with several engineering concepts which allow a first order analysis of phenomena such as the vapour balance, the mold, mildew and dust mites risk, surface condensation, sorption, capillary suction, rain absorption and drying. In a last section, heat and mass transfer are combined into one overall model staying closest to the real hygrothermal response of building components, as observed in field experiments. The book combines the theory of heat and mass transfer with typical building engineering applications. The line from theory to application is dressed in a correct and clear way. In the theory, oversimplification is avoided. This book is the result of thirty years teaching, research and consultancy activity of the author.