Importance of laboratory testing of Environmental & Building materials

Testing of building/construction materials and environmental testing go hand in hand in ensuring the infrastructural development of a nation, which eventually leads to the prosperity and growth of that country. The success of any infrastructural project lies in the availability of skilled manpower, application of advanced technologies, and utilization of high quality construction materials. The quality of such materials should be assessed properly in an accredited laboratory.

The basic properties of engineering or building materials can be broadly categorized into three types: Physical, Mechanical and Chemical. All these three test types are used to characterize the test items in terms of their respective properties. Mechanical properties describe the behavior of the materials under the application of external loads. Some of the mechanical properties are Compressive strength, tensile strength, Young’s modulus, Hardness etc. The physical properties arise due to the physical state or composition of the substance, and some of the common properties are density, specific gravity, soundness, permeability, porosity, moisture, texture etc. Last but not the least, the chemical properties reveal about the chemical composition and the chemical characteristics which arise as a result of various relevant chemical reactions involving the test item. Some such properties include pH, acidity, alkalinity, ash content, chemical composition of key ingredients (like cations, anions, chemical compounds) in cement, minerals etc. Building materials testing not only involves testing of all the key ingredients of construction, like cement, aggregate, concrete, reinforced steel etc., but also involves soil testing and water testing used for construction. The testing of such materials is done at various stages of the construction activities, and hence form an important part of the Quality Assurance program.

Environmental testing is generally done in tandem with testing of building materials, in order to keep a track of the environmental hazards posed as a result of construction activities. But environmental testing is also carried out to monitor other activities, be it industrial or commercial, that can pose a threat to human health and our ecosystem. Environmental testing differs from a lot other testing fields in the sense that its main aim is to assess the impact that the various anthropogenic activities have on our ecosystem, and hence the test results should not be viewed as mere numbers but understood in a subjective manner.