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Technical Note (National Research Council of Canada. Division of Building Research), 1964-12-01
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.-,
DIVISION OF BUILDING RESEARCH
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF CANADA
'fE
C
1HI N ][ CAlL
NOTlE
No.
429
PREPARED BY N. B. Hutcheon CHECKED BY APPROVED BY
PREPARED FOR Inquiry Reply
SUBJECT
DATE December 1964
RESEARCH ON BUILDING MATERIALS IN CANADA
This Note has been prepared in answer to a specific request from a building research agency in another country for information on materials research at the Division of
Building Research, National Research Council. It provides
in addition some background information on certain features of the Canadian economy which have an influence on the
extent, organization and needs in materials research.
•
The population of Canada is about one tenth of that of the United States, occupying a land area which is
somewhat greater than the U.S. Large areas toward the
north are very sparsely settled, the population being for the most part confined to a zone 200 to 300 miles wide and
3500 miles long along the southern boundary. About half
the population lives in that part of the zone between Hamilton, Ontario and Quebec City, a distance of about 600 miles.
The Canadian economy i.s greatly influenced by
three factors; the need for transport over great distances,
an abundance of natural resources, including energy sources, and proximity to the United States.
The products of the primary industries contribute very largely to the domestic exports, the principal exports being newsprint, wheat, lumber and timber, wood pulp, nickel, aluminum, petroleum, iron ore, copper, radioactive ores and
2
asbestos. Despite this, manufacturing accounts for
24 billion dollars annually out of a Gross National Product of 40 billion (1962).
The ｕｮｩｴｾ､ States receives about 58% of Canada's
exports while providing about 62% of her imports. About
50% of the capital invested in manufacturing is foreign-owned, and by far the largest portion of this comes from
the United States. It is thus inevitable that the United
States should exert a great influence on many aspects. of
Canadian life; and that the pattern of research on
materials in Canada is affected substantially by certain features of the close association of these two countries.
It is of particular interest to note that many Canadian companies are foreign-owned and in many cases where the controlling ownership is in the United States, the Canadian company is operated as a subsidiary to a
parent U.S. Company. The subsidiary engages in plant
con-struction, production and sales, frequently completely undei Canadian management, but the research and development and
often the engineering is carried out in the U.S. In ｳｯｾ･
cases, the Canadian company may be ｣ｯｾｩｴｴ･､ to buying
engineering services or equipment from the parent company. The subsidiary may not always be permitted to make any changes to the process or product.
This situation, applicable to some substantial portion of·the building materials industry has an effect on
the amount of industry research carried on in 'Canada. It
must be said in all fairness that Canada benefits greatly .from research in the United States, whether shared within
companies, within industries or within scientific professional and technical societies, but this too, has had a delaying
effect on the development of a corresponding Canadian effort. An outstanding and somewhat unique case is
represented by the cement industry. Canadian cement
pro-ducens are members of the Portland Cement Association in the United States which maintains research laboratories and a
large development and engineering staff. These activities
are supported by a levy on cement production and are largely
designed to improve and promote the use of cement. These
research laboratories, which are outstanding and known all over the world have a staff of 275 working on cement and concrete alone, and their services are available to Canadian member companies on the same basis as those in the U.S.
3
-For these and other reasons the industrial research effort in Canada, other than in the chemical
and electrical industries which are strongly science-based, and with a few other notable exceptions, has been relatively
small, and in some cases practically non-existent. This
is now changing rapidly, and numbers of industry laboratories
are being established. In the building materials field,
one large company complex bringing together a number of established building products companies has set up a large central research laboratory bringing together for the first time in any industry laboratory a variety of interests in a range of building materials.
There has been little development in Canada of joint government-industry research laboratories as are found in other parts of the world, notably the U.K. and the
Netherlands. There is one notable exception in. the case
of the pulp and paper industry which has received substan-tial federal government support in the operation of the Pulp and Paper Research Institute established many years ago in collaboration with McGill University but now housed in its own fine laboratory buildings.
Canada has, on the other hand, ､･ｶ･ｬｯｰｾ､ a number
of large government research laboratories. Three of these,
in agriculture, ｾｩｮ･ｳＬ and forest products serve ｰｲｩｾ｡ｮｹ
industries, and are operated within the corresponding federal
government departments. The latter two have great interest
in building materials.
The Mines Branch of the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys is concerned with all aspects of the exploitation and development of mineral resources, both
metallic and non-metallic. It has, therefore a strong
interest in building stone, concrete aggregates, cement, lime,
and burned clay products. The Forest Products Research
Branch of the Department of Forestry is similarly concerned with the exploitation of forest resources and is the chief
source of research and technical information on Canadian wood and wood products, exclusive of pulp and paper.
Secondary industry is served in part by the National Research Council, established in 1917 with responsibility
for the promotion of scientific and industrial research. NRC promotes research in Universities through a programme
of scholarships, fellowships and grants-in-aid. It also
- 4
-in pure and applied science and eng-ineer-ing. One of
its ten Divisions, ｴｨｾ Division of Building Research,
has special concern for the research needs of the
con-struction industry, including a strong interest in building
materials. It works in close cooperation with the Mines
Branch and the Forest Products Research Branch. Further
information on NRC may be found in the Annual Review of
NRC published each year. A concise description of ｾｒｃ
is contained in a paper, the National Research Council
and Industrial Research by R. F. Le9Qet and N. B. Hutcheon,
NRC 7428, May 1963.
The total federal government expenditures on research amount to about 250 million dollars per year and most of this is spent in the government's own laboratories.
Industry currently spends about 100 million dollars. In
recent years it has been government policy to promote
-increased efforts in research by industry. Generous tax
concessions are made in the case of research expenses, and in addition grants are made available through the Industrial Research Assistance scheme operated by the National Research Council covering half the cost of any extension of
basic-research within industry laboratories. A somewhat similar
scheme is operated through the Defence Research Board on behalf of research important for defence.
There is also the provincial level of government
to consider by way of background. All of the ten provinces
of Canada have their own Highways Departments and Public Works Departments and have jurisdiction over all natural resources held by the Crown, apart from those in federal
territories. In most cases power generation is carried
out largely as a provincial enterprise. All of these
Departments at the provincial level are large users of materials and are involved in inspection and testing, but except in a few cases they carry out little real research. One notable exception is the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario, the very large electric utility serving Canada's
largest province with almost one third of the total population, which has long operated very fine large research laboratories to serve its own operations.
Six of the ten provinces have sponsored provincial
research councils. These vary in size and most have full
time staff and their own laboratories. Most are provided
with some government support but IIlUst find their main
revenues from charges for work done. All are concerned
with the promotion-of provincial industry and with the
5
-I
The Universities of Canada are' for all practical
purposes provincial, since, regardless of the auspices ｾｮ､･ｲ
which they were founded they rely heavily upon provincial
government support. Some federal funds are provided on a
per capita basis to the various universities. Financial
support for research, other than that from the general funds of the University, comes principally from federal government
sources. The principal source of funds for scientific and
industrial research is the ｾ｡ｴｩｯｮ｡ｬ Research Council, but
grants are also provided by other agencies, including the
Defence Research Board. The major portion of the funds
available goes to support pure or basic scientific research and only a small proportion is associated with research which can be said to be industrial.
The applied science and engineering departments in Canadian Universities have not over the years, as in the United States, accepted substantial industrial support for
research. This has tended to limit both the competence
of the Universities to undertake industrial research and the numbers of post-graduate students produced who have had
experience in industrial research problems. Now the trend
in both Canada and the U.S. is toward more fundamental or basic work within the Universities, although there is still much work carried out in U.S. Universities for industry.
Consequently, research into building materials
apart from the more intriguing aspects of plastics, metallurgy, and solid state physics, does not currently have much interest for ｕｮｩｶｾｲｳｩｴｹ research. Traditionally, departments of
engineering have maintained materials laboratories, and some work has been carried out on concrete, wood and steel.
Such facilities have often been made available for commercial testing in response to local needs.
Materials testing, though by no means synonymous with research, often carries with it some element of applied
research. There are no government-controlled testing
laboratories in Canada for the testing of materials for other
than government use. Private or commercial testing "companies
are relied on for this purpose. (See Directory of Commercial
Testing and Inspection Services in Canada, NRC 3910, July 1956). As already noted, many large materials-using agencies, both
government and private maintain materials testing services. Among these are the federal Department of Public Works, the Inspection Services of the Department of National Defence, and the laboratories of provincial Public Works and Highways
6
-Ontario Hydro. as already mentioned, is a large agency which maintains its own testing and research services
in respect of their own materials requirements. Others are
the Canadian National Railways, and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited.
The overall situation in building materials is thus a rather complex one, involving the United States·as
well as Canada, and government as well as industry. For
the most part, the problems are being tackled on a limited
or sectional interest basis. Building materials are, with
only a few exceptions being studied out of the context of the building as a whole, and very few laboratories are in a position to study phenomena as they relate to a number of
building materials. It is against this background that the
policies and programme of the Division of Building Research have been developed.
The work of DBR in materials research occupies about 15% of the total staff, or 30 people in all at the
present time, one third of whom are research officers. A
drastic selection of problems has had to be made, and
priorities established. The results of this are reflected
in the programme of work which is described in the Annual
Reports of the Division. Only the more significant features
will be noted here.
All of the work is directed toward the production
of needed information. Since the staff is small, decisions
have had to be made as to the problems to be attacked and the most profitable ways of approaching them • . Many of them,
such as durability. and particularly freeze-thaw durability, have already been the subject of much study by many other
laboratories. It has .been decided in this case that efforts
can best be expended in basic studies, leading, it is hoped, to an adequate understanding of the phenomena involved, so that more immediate and more practical studies can be more effectively planned and interpreted.
After the Division had been in operation for a number of years, it began to be clear that many of the most pressing problems could be grouped under the headings
dimensional stability and durability. It was concluded, also,
that many of them involved water in porous ?ystems. while others especially with organic materials, involved ultra-violet
catalyzed oxidations. Because of these and other considerations
it was decided to divide the Materials Section, then the largest in the Division into two Sections on organic and inorganic materials.
7
-At the same time, since there was some difficulty in recruiting research officers with doctorate qualifications
to work on bricks, lime, concrete, paints and bitumens ｡ｾ
such, the organization was changed within these two sections to emphasize the phenomena involved rather than the
particular materials. This is much more attractive to the
scientist, while at the same time taking advantage of the opportunities to observe the same phenomena in a range .of materials.
The materia 15 work ,al so benefits from the breadth of interest of the Division as well as the, close contact
with the field, through the Building Practice work. For
example, interests are shared between the Inorganic Materials Section and the Snow and Ice Section in the matter of
freeZing of water in porous systems, with mutual benefit
and stimulation. There is also the opportunity to see these
problems in the context of the whole building and to recognize inter-relationships between various factors.
The Annual Report, Building Research 1962 discusses more specifically the present broad objectives in inorganic
materials. The work of the Organic Materials Section is
still largely based on individual materials but the emphasis is being placed more and more on the phenomena involved. Current work in both these Sections is described in Building Research 1963.
