UNIT-IV TIMBER AND OTHER MATERIALS

1) Write a short note on Timber?

Using timber is energy saving. The manifold material values can also be expanded with the material
selection. The selection between different materials like round wood, squared wood, sawn wood or
glued laminated timber which has been improved through industrial methods, or different sorts of
plywood, provides different resistance qualities with economical and competitive construction
possibilities.

Techniques and Means of Assembling:

 New highly efficient means of assembling, i.e. connections with lower section
weakening and needs of steal, have to be developed for a highest possible degree
of pre-fabrication in the workshop and in order to reduce the working time on the
site as much as possible.
 The use of new connecting systems like nailed tinplates, screws, lag bolts as well as connectors
with wood contact allow a much higher quality of more filigree supporting systems when
linked with deterministic non-destructive testing methods in order to avoid sporadic

New Techniques in Timber Construction:

 The increasing use of timber in the construction depends on engineering

developments of timber as a load-bearing material, in order to raise the modest
portion of the total construction volume from about 1 per cent to perhaps 2 or 3
per cent.
 The criteria of development are: better evaluation of the timber quality, increase
of the diversity and better treatment of material varieties, development of new
time-sparing assembling techniques which allow the highest possible degree of
pre-fabrication.
 Quantity related techniques for floors, walls and roofs of the dense housing and
public buildings linked with other massive construction materials, as well as
quality related high-tech systems, which play a significant role in the modern
architecture of roof, hall and bridge construction.

2) Write a short notes on the following terms:

(i) Thermocale
(ii) Aluminum
(iii) Bitumen
(iv) Varnish.

Thermocale: Its high thermal insulation makes it an excellent material to use in the
construction of walls and ceilings and its high sound absorption makes it the ideal choice for
sound-proofing.

Thermocale is a commercial name like Coca-Cola. In 1951 the researchers of a German

company named BASF successfully restructured chemical bonding of polystyrene (a synthetic
petroleum product) molecules and developed a substance named stretch polystyrene

This substance was named Thermocol, which nowadays is manufactured through a simple
process.

Thermoplastic granules are expanded through application of steam and air. Expanded
granules become much larger in size but remain very light
 Thermocol is a good resister of cold and heat but since it is a petroleum product it
dissolves in any solvent of petroleum.

Thermocol technical name s Poly (1-phenylethene).

It density is 0.96–1.04 g/cm3

Its melting point is ~ 240 °C (464 °F; 513 K)[4]For Isotactic Polystyrene

It is Insoluble in water.

Its thermal conductivity is 0.033 W/(m·K) (foam, ρ 0.05 g/cm3)[2]

Aluminum: Aluminum or aluminum is a chemical element with symbol Al and atomic

number 13. It is a silvery-white, soft, nonmagnetic and ductile metal in the boron group.
 By mass, aluminum makes up about 8% of the Earth's crust; it is the third most
abundant element after oxygen and silicon and the most abundant metal in the
crust, though it is less common in the mantle below.
 Aluminum is remarkable for its low density and its ability to
resist corrosion through the phenomenon of passivation.

Properties
 Aluminum is a very good conductor of electricity and heat. It is light and strong. It can be
hammered into sheets (malleable) or pulled out into wires (ductile). It is a highly reactive metal,
although it is corrosion resistant.
 Aluminum prevents corrosion by forming a small, thin layer of aluminum oxide on its surface.
This layer protects the metal by preventing oxygen from reaching it. Corrosion can not occur
without oxygen. Because of this thin layer, the reactivity of aluminum is not seen.

Uses
Many things are made of aluminum. Much of it is used in overhead power lines. It is also widely used
in window frames and aircraft bodies. It is found at home as saucepans, soft drink cans, and cooking foil. Aluminum is
also used to coat car headlamps and compact discs.
Pure aluminum is very soft, so a harder metal is almost always added. The harder metal is usually copper.
Copper/aluminum alloys are to make ships, because the aluminum prevents corrosion, and the copper
prevents barnacles.
Aluminum compounds are used in deodorants, water processing plants, food additives, and antacids.

Silver Metallic gray color

Bitumen:

A black viscous mixture of hydrocarbons obtained naturally or as a residue from petroleum distillation. It
is used for road surfacing and roofing.

Origin:

In general the term “bituminous materials” is used to denote substances in which bitumen is present or from
which it can be derived. Bituminous substances comprise of primarily bitumen’s and tars .

Bitumen Coal Tar

ORIGIN Naturally occurring. Derives from coal

Petroleum processing Through a process of

Production from crude oil carbonization of coal
(petroleum), the pyrolisis of coal at a
process does not high temperature. It is
involve cracking or essentially a by-
thermal conversion. product of the
Comes from animal production of coke
matter. from coal.
Comes from plants
matter.
Black, sticky, viscose, Thick, black, sticky
Appearance thermoplastic. liquid.

Construction. Construction, medicine

Application Currently,
approximately 80% of
bitumen demand is for
road construction.
Not carcinogenic.
Toxicity
coal tar is also added to
the dye treatments that
are administered to the
fabrics.
Coal tar was also used
for road construction
and water proofing
until it was replaced by
bitumen after the
Second World War
Carcinogenic.

VARNISH:
HISTORY OF VARNISH:

Early varnishes were developed by mixing resin—pine sap, for example—with a solvent and
applying them with a brush to get the golden and hardened effect one sees in today's varnishes.[1]
Varnishing was a technique well known in ancient Egypt.
Varnishing is also recorded in the history of East and South Asia; in India, China and Japan,
where the practice of lacquer work, a species of varnish application, was known at a very early
date.

Varnish is a transparent, hard, protective finish or film that is primarily used in

wood finishing but also for other materials. Varnish is traditionally a combination
of a drying oil, a resin, and a thinner or solvent.

Components of classic varnish

Drying oil- There is many different types of drying oils, including linseed oil, tung oil, and
walnut oil.

Resin- Resins that are used in varnishes include amber, kauri gum, dammar, copal, rosin (pine
resin), sandarac, balsam, elemi, mastic, and others. Shellac is also a resin. In the 1900s in
Canada, resins from local trees were used to finish pianos

Solvent- Traditionally, natural (organic) turpentine was used as the thinner or solvent, but has
been replaced by several mineral-based turpentine substitutes such as white spirit or "paint
thinner", also known as "mineral spirit".

PLYWOOD: is a sheet material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that
are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one
another.

HISTORY OF PLYWOOD: In 1797 Samuel Bentham applied for patents covering several
machines to produce veneers. In his patent applications, he described the concept of laminating
several layers of veneer with glue to form a thicker piece – the first description of what we now
call plywood

Structural characteristics:

A typical plywood panel has face veneers of a higher grade than the core veneers. The principal
function of the core layers is to increase the separation between the outer layers where the
bending stresses are highest, thus increasing the panel's resistance to bending.
 Types of Plywood:

Hardwood plywood
Softwood plywood
Tropical plywood
Aircraft plywood
Decorative plywood (overlaid plywood)
Flexible plywood
Marine plywood

MECHANICAL & HEAT TREATMENT OF STEEL

Heat treatment of metal is a term used to describe an operation or

a series of operations which involves heating and cooling of a metal
or an alloy when it is in the solid state for obtaining some desirable
properties (without changing the chemical composition ).

The main objective of Heat Treatment of Steel

1. Enhancing the hardness of the steel.
2. Stress reliving from the metal after hot rolling or cold working.
3. To improve the machinability.
4. To make the metal soft.
5. The structure of the metal can be modified to improve the electrical and magnetic propeeties.
6. To change the grain size of the metal.
7. After heat treatment metals are more resistant to heat, corrosion and wear.

Various Heat Treatment processes

a. Normalizing:
o In Normalizing the soaking temperature is 30-50 degree centigrade within the range of austenite field.
o After soaking the alloy is cooled. The cooling rate and temperature helps to get smaller grains.
o Normalizing improves toughness and strength.
b. Annealing:
o Process involes heating the steel above the critical temperature, maintaining the temperature and and then cooling
o Increases ductility, softens the metal, and improve cold working properties.

c. Spheroidising:
o It is done at about 727 degree centigrade temperature. This process is limited to the steels having a carbon percentage of
0.5%.
o High temperature recrystallizes the ferrite. The Iron Carbide present in the pearlite takes the shape of ball or sphere. This
is called 'ball up'
o Because of these changes hardness and strength reduces.

d. Hardening and Tempering:

o Hardening and tempering is done using very high temperatures. The temperature depends on the amount of carbon
present in the steel .
o Tempering means heating the steel again but this time the temperature is not that high.
e. Surface Hardening or Case Hardening :

o The main reason for hardening steel is to retard wear on bearing and rubbing surfaces. But harder steel is brittle and that's
why its not fatigue and shock resistant. So the hardening process is done on the surface only. It is very much cost
effective.
Thermochemical Processes
These involve the diffusion, to pre-determined depths into the steel surface, of carbon, nitrogen and, less
commonly, boron. These elements may be added individually or in combination and the result is a surface
with desirable properties and of radically different composition to the bulk.

Carburising
Carbon diffusion (carburising) produces a higher carbon steel composition on the part surface. It is
usually necessary to harden both this layer and the substrate after carburising.

Nitriding
Nitrogen diffusion (nitriding) and boron diffusion (boronising or boriding) both produce hard intermetallic
compounds at the surface. These layers are intrinsically hard and do not need heat treatment
themselves.

Nitrogen diffusion (nitriding) is often carried out at or below the tempering temperature of the steels used.
Hence they can be hardened prior to nitriding and the nitriding can also be used as a temper.

Boronising
Boronised substrates will often require heat treatment to restore mechanical properties. As borides
degrade in atmospheres which contain oxygen, even when combined as CO or C02, they must be heat
treated in vacuum, nitrogen or nitrogen/hydrogen atmospheres.

Processing Methods
In the past the thermochemical processes were carried out by pack cementation or salt bath processes.
These are now largely replaced, on product quality and environmental grounds, by gas and plasma
techniques. The exception is boronising, for which a safe production scale gaseous route has yet to be
developed and pack cementation is likely to remain the only viable route for the for some time to come.

The gas processes are usually carried out in the now almost universal seal quench furnace, and any
subsequent heat treatment is readily carried out immediately without taking the work out of the furnace.
This reduced handling is a cost and quality benefit.
Techniques and Practice
As we have already seen this requires heating to above the As temperature, holding to equalise the
temperature and then slow cooling. If this is done in air there is a real risk of damage to the part by
decarburisation and of course oxidation. It is increasingly common to avoid this by ‘bright’ or ‘close’
annealing using protective atmospheres. The particular atmosphere chosen will depend upon the type of
steel.

Normalising
In common with annealing there is a risk of surface degradation but as air cooling is common practice this
process is most often used as an intermediate stage to be followed by machining, acid pickling or cold
working to restore surface integrity.
Hardening
With many components, hardening is virtually the final process and great care must taken to protect the
surface from degradation and decarburisation. The ‘seal quench’ furnace is now an industry standard tool
for carbon, low and medium alloy steels. The work is protected at each stage by a specially generated
atmosphere.

Some tool steels benefit from vacuum hardening and tempering, salt baths were widely used but are now
losing favour on environmental grounds.

Tempering
Tempering is essential after most hardening operations to restore some toughness to the structure. It is
frequently performed as an integral part of the cycle in a seal quench furnace, with the parts fully
protected against oxidation and decarburisation throughout the process. Generally tempering is
conducted in the temperature range 150 to 700°C, depending on the type of steel and is time dependent
as the microstructural changes occur relatively slowly.

Caution : Tempering can, in some circumstances, make the steel brittle which is the opposite of what it is
intended to achieve.

There are two forms of this brittleness

Temper Brittleness which affects both carbon and low alloy steels when either, they are cooled too slowly
from above 575°C, or are held for excessive times in the range 375 to 575°C. The embrittlement can be
reversed by heating to above 575°C and rapidly cooling.

Blue Brittleness affects carbon and some alloy steels after tempering in the range 230 to 370°C The
effect is not reversible and susceptible steels should not be employed in applications in which they
sustain shock loads.

If there is any doubt consult with the heat treater or in house metallurgical department about the suitability
of the steel type and the necessary heat treatment for any application.

Martempering and Austempering

It will be readily appreciated that the quenching operation used in hardening introduces internal stresses
into the steel. These can be sufficiently large to distort or even crack the steel.

Martempering is applied to steels of sufficient hardenability and involves an isothermal hold in the
quenching operation. This allows temperature equalisation across the section of the part and more
uniform cooling and structure, hence lower stresses. The steel can then be tempered in the usual way.

Austempering also involves an isothermal hold in the quenching operation, but the structure formed,
whilst hard and tough, does not require further tempering. The process is mostly applied to high carbon
steels in relatively thin sections for springs or similar parts. These processes are shown schematically in
the TTT Curves, (figures 2a and 3b).

Figure 2. Temperature vs. time profiles for (a) austempering and (b) martempering.

Localised hardening sometimes as flame hardening, laser hardening, RF or induction hardening and
electron beam hardening depending upon the heat source used. These processes are used where only a
small section of the component surface needs to be hard, eg a bearing journal. In many cases there is
sufficient heat sink in the part and an external quench is not needed. There is a much lower risk of
distortion associated with this practice, and it can be highly automated and it is very reproducible.
MARKETS OF TIMBER:-

Definition of Timber
Any wood which is used in engineering works is termed as timber.Although some of its usages are given
up to steel, concrete and other products its usages in construction and other commercial purposes are
still of great importance.

Market Forms of Timber

The followings are the various types of market forms of timber.
1. Log - Log and timber homes are about the way they’re built and the building material. Indeed, log
and timber homes can assume many styles while remaining recognizably log or timber

2. Lumber-Lumber (American English; used only in North America) or timber (used in the
rest of the English speaking world) is a type of wood that has been processed into beams and
planks, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for structural purposes
but has many other uses as well.

There are two main types of lumber. It may be supplied either rough-sawn, or surfaced on one or
more of its faces. Besides pulpwood, rough lumber is the raw material for furniture-making and
other items requiring additional cutting and shaping. It is available in many species, usually
hardwoods; but it is also readily available in softwoods, such as white pine and red pine, because
of their low cost.[1]

Finished lumber is supplied in standard sizes, mostly for the construction industry – primarily
softwood, from coniferous species, including pine, fir and spruce (collectively spruce-pine-fir),
cedar, and hemlock, but also some hardwood, for high-grade flooring. It is classified more
commonly made from softwood than hardwoods, and 80% of lumber comes from softwood.

3. Bilk

4. Deal

5. Batten

6. Plank

7. Board

8. Scantline

9. Pole
STY
STANDARD TIMBER SIZE

STRIP- UNDR100mm wide

SQUARE- UPTO 150×150

BOARD- OVER 100mm WIDE UP TO 50mm THICK

PLANK-UPTO 375mm WIDE OVER 50mm THICK