Within the constructing commerce, for nearly all of these concerned, natural supplies are nonetheless thought of to be mere equipment, as merchandise of secondary significance. Nevertheless, they’ve proved to be omnipresent and due to this fact important to the commerce.

This imaginative and prescient additionally explains why these natural supplies have solely been of curiosity to these authors of science and know-how within the software’s restricted framework, within the commerce the place every one in all these supplies is required. Expertise within the civil engineering area has proven us that the “plastics”, typically known as delicate supplies, have many traits in widespread.

All taken collectively, these traits could also be attention-grabbing to check, with the intention each to show, and to stimulate analysis. Out of this intention, the 2003 work entitled Matériaux organiques pour le génie civil – Approche physico-chimique [MOU 03] was created and later translated into English as Organic Materials in Civil Engineering [MOU 06].

On this guide we tried to outline the sector represented by these supplies, that are characterised as:

– on the one hand, natural supplies;

– however, development supplies.

So as to method natural supplies, we selected the physicochemical method, which means that we begin by wanting for what (of their molecular construction) characterizes these supplies, and what precisely characterizes them as being a part of the identical class, no matter their use.

The intrinsic properties of those supplies, particularly their mechanical conduct, clearly rely on this structural information. Conversely, we had been capable of finding every kind of coherences between merchandise with utterly completely different makes use of, and we had been then capable of justify the tranversality speculation which guides our work.

Right here, we ought to be exact. Though they’re largely within the majority, the compounds which chemists name polymers – which might be vastly mentioned on this guide – aren’t the one present natural supplies, notably in development.

That is why bitumen1 used for street engineering and sealing varied varieties of constructions, has an “natural” construction however can’t be certified as polymers. In the identical approach, lumber just isn’t strictly a polymer. Due to this fact our topic exceeds the strict framework of polymer functions in development.

The world of development supplies is so huge that we selected to restrict ourselves to the civil engineering discipline, the place we felt extra comfy, taking into consideration our personal skilled expertise. Works had been carried out to the sector of constructing development, however primarily for extrapolation causes.

This preliminary work couldn’t be left on this situation. The curiosity it generated made us take up its trigger once more, and develop it on two factors.

Therefore, immediately we will say that natural development supplies are on the very coronary heart of the awakening to the idea of sustainable growth. Such an assertion already handed for a pure provocation, 5 or ten years in the past. Now it’s turning into related, and immediately we flip our consideration particularly to those that may need felt prompted yesterday.

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