Building Materials Evaluation Handbook [Paperback]

This is a reference book. Although it might conceivably be read in the order in which the subjects appear it was designed to be consulted subject to subject as one uses a dictionary or encyclopedia. To facilitate quick identification and location of building materials, characteristics and problems they are first listed in the table of contents, repeated in the chapter headings and listed in the index. In addition to describing how building materials respond to environmental stresses in terms of their mechanical, electrical, chemical and thermal properties, brief references to their normal behavior and a comparison of various material characteristics has been included.

Most of the information gathered and presented here represents the contemporary developments of ancient building lore. The increasing importance of renewal, rehabilitation, retrofit and restoration is placing added importance on material behavior. A separate and distinct field of building science is emerging as increasingly sophisticated instruments are linked to the growing ability and decreasing costs of computer analysis. This book describes one segment of a new building science-that of building diagnosis.

Three sleek new skyscrapers inch their way to completion in a five-block stretch of Madison Avenue, a tribute to the continuing popularity of midtown Manhanttan as one of the world's most elegant and expensive addresses. Beneath the skyscrapers-which will house such blue-chip tenants as American Telephone and Telegraph, International Business Machines, and Continental Illinois National Bank-the city's water and sewer system decays. Limousines clog the Wall Street area each day, whisking the captains of business to their appointed rounds, and each night the chauffeur-driven cars line up at Le Cirque, Regine's and the Plaza. But the drivers take their passengers down the FDR Drive at some risk, for the major East Side highway is crumbling. Thel3!