Durability Of Building Materials And Components, Proceedings Of The First International Confrence, A Symposium Presented At Ottawa, Canada, 21-23 Aug. 1978, ASTM Special Technical Publication 691

"The First International Conference on Building Materials and Components was held in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 21-23 August 1978. The symposium was sponsored by Committee E-6 on Performance of Building Constructions and Committee G-3 on Durability of Nonmetallic Materials of the American Society for Testing and Materials, National Research Council of Canada, National Bureau of Standards, and Reunion International des Laboratories d'Essais et de Recherches sur les Materiaux et les Constructions. P. J. Sereda and G. G. Litvan, National Research Council of Canada, presided as chirmen of the symposium and editors of this publication." [from foreword] "Durability is today at once a vital but singularly complex feature in modern building. The ability to predict the service life---the durability---of a new building material is being ardently sought after in many parts of the world. Widespread efforts are correspondingly being made to increase the durability of materials already in wide use. All this work will be increasingly necessary as the factors tending to diminish durability steadily become more serious in intensity and distribution. Any estimate of the economic losses resulting from failures in durability lead inevitably to dollar figures so astronomically large that they are usually regarded with incredulity. This volume of papers is, therefore, a singularly valuable document and a worthy addition to the publications of the American Society for Testing and Materials. It is fitting that the volume should be published by ASTM since much of the work of this Society throughout its more than eighty years has been devoted to the durability of materials and to the development of useful testing methods. Problems of durability affect the use of almost all materials used in engineering so that the relevant interest within ASTM is cosiety-wide. The problem of durability in building, and with all types of building material, are especially serious......" [preface by R. F. Legget]