Recent trends of research in plastic building materials in India

Of the total World production of plastics over 25 by value goes into various building applications. In India, this figure is considerably lower. The main reasons for this situation are lack of knowledge amongst engineers and architects about plastics, lack of availability of performance data and high cost. The present paper is a review of research work carried out on Plastics in Buildings at this institute as well as in other laboratories in the country.

Use of plastics in exposed conditions requires great care particularly in climatic conditions of tropical countries like India. Considerable work has been done to evaluate weathering performance of a number of plastic products such as GRP sheets polyethylene films, PVC and PMMA sheets and plastic water storage tanks.

Plastic pipes are considerably more economical compared to GI pipes and are being used in many parts of the country. But there are complaints of leakage and unsatisfactory performance in some cases. Other doubts raised are danger from rodents and termites.

Resin bonded building materials find limited use because of high cost of UF and PF resins. Attempts have been made to find alternative resinous materials or to use extenders. This includes work done on CNSL resins, tannin based resins and blending of proteinous materials with thermosetting resins.

Other developmental work includes evaluation of protective coatings for concrete and for reinforcement in brick work, studies on polymer impregnated concrete, wood plastic composites and plastic sandwich panels and utilisation of agricultural wastes to produce low cost plastics building materials.

The paper briefly reviews the work on all above aspects and lists 28 references. Emphasis has been laid on greater cooperation between industry and research organisation to win the confidence of the user.