6 Advantages and 6 Disadvantages of Composite Decking

The use of composite decking really seems to be taking off here. While at the Calgary Home and Garden Show I had a bit of a chat at a decking booth. He told me that composite decking material is becoming more and more common. They are still building more timber/wood decks than composite decks, but composite decks are becoming more popular and common. Below are a few advantages that they talked about with composite decking materials: 1. No evidence of nails / nice flat finish

2. Environmentally friendly, made from recycled material (plastics bags, milk bottles, etc.) 3. Pre-coloured and never has to be painted, oiled or stained 4. Easy to clean with a hose 5. Smooth, splinter free finish 6. Flexible material with many unique possibilites over wood / timber All of those sounded too good to be true so I did a bit of research into composite decking material after coming home. There is a lot of good things about it, but there are also a few concerns that I found on the Internet about composite building materials. Here are a few of them: 1. Can not be used for load-bearing or structural work

2. Expands and contacts at different rates than material needed to be used for structure / frame 3. If damaged or faded the material must be replaced 4. It is very temperature sensitive and expands and contracts with temperature change 5. Very new building material 6. Its a soft material and wears easily Probably the best review of the material that I have read so far is from a deck contractor around Toronto in Ontario, Canada. From reading the article it sounds like he has done a lot of looking into it, and has had some experience with composite building materials, but builds primarily with wood / timber:

Advantages and Disadvantages of Composite Resin Inlays

Advantages and Disadvantages of Composite Resin Inlays Advantages of Composite Resin Inlays

 High esthetics Better control of the contact areas Excellent marginal adaptation Reduced or no laboratory fee if done in the office Ready repairability of material intraorally Cross-splinting of the compromised tooth and easy removal if replaced becomes necessary Compensation for complete polymerization shrinkage by curing the materials outside of the mouth Increased composite resin strength because of the heat-curing process Disadvantage Wear faster Less stable than ceramic

Advantages and disadvantages of composite indexes

A composite index provides opportunities for index covering. If queries provide search arguments on each of the keys, the composite index requires fewer I/Os than the same query using an index on any single attribute. A composite index is a good way to enforce the uniqueness of multiple attributes. Good choices for composite indexes are: Lookup tables Columns that are frequently accessed together

Columns used for vector aggregates Columns that make a frequently used subset from a table with very wide rows The disadvantages of composite indexes are: Composite indexes tend to have large entries. This means fewer index entries per index page and more index pages to read. An update to any attribute of a composite index causes the index to be modified. The columns you choose should not be those that are updated often. Poor choices are:

Indexes that are nearly as wide as the table Composite indexes where only a minor key is used in the where clause

Composites Today's Material of Choice Thanks to a growing menu of material choices and lower manufacturing costs, composite material continues to penetrate new markets and applications. For industries that traditionally use assemblies made from more traditional options such as steel, wood or concrete, composites offer a dynamic alternative especially for those products that are difficult to assemble or costly to manufacture as a result of increasing steel pieces. Composites are created by combining two or more materials to produce a new material that retains important properties from the original elements. Reinforcing fibers give composites the attributes of high strength and stiffness which in the industrial arena translates to high performance. These fibers are surrounded by a choice of polymers that act as a support system, transferring load between fibers and protecting the fibers from the operating environment. Fiber/resin combinations have significantly lower weight densities when compared to steel and concrete. This means superb strength-to-weight and stiffness-to-weight ratios. For the customer, the advantages of composites are: High strength and stiffness Light weight Corrosion resistance (long life) Design and formulation flexibility Fatigue resistance Good damping characteristics

Low thermal expansion Unitized structure Composites can also deliver reduced manufacturing/assembly costs. Since liquid resin can flow into any shape, products with complex shapes can be made at a lower cost when compared to conventional methods using traditional materials. Typically, complex shapes of metals or wood require labor intensive assembly of multiple pieces to create the product. Composites can provide a one-piece or unitized part which is ultimately the lowest cost alternative. The lower cost of unitized composite parts is particularly attractive for customers that purchase products assembled from many metallic pieces or have difficult-to-form shapes

What are composite materials? Composites are a unique class of materials made from two or more distinct materials that when combined are better (stronger, tougher, and/or more durable) than each would be separately. They are non-corroding, nonmagnetic, radar transparent and they are designed to provide strength and stiffness where it is needed. Although many man-made materials have two or more constituents, such as metallic alloys, but they are usually not classified as composites because the structural unit is formed at microscopic level (it means that the combination of materials are combined in such a way that the individual components are indistinguishable) rather than at the macroscopic level (that means the constituents retain their identities in the composite, they do not dissolve or otherwise merge completely into each other). In composite materials, the components can be physically identified and exhibit an interface between one another. The most common composite is the fibrous composite consisting of reinforcing fibres embedded in a binder, or matrix materials.

The importance of composites Composites have properties, which could not be achieved by either of the constituent materials alone. We can see that composites are becoming more and more important as it can help to improve our quality of life. Composites are put into service in flight vehicles, automobiles, boats, pipelines, buildings, roads, bridges, and dozens of other products. Researchers are finding ways to improve other qualities of composites so they may be strong, lightweight, long-lived, and inexpensive to produce.

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Different type of composites Actually the production of composites is an attempt to copy nature. Wood is a composite of cellulose fibres cemented together with lignin. This kind of composite is called natural composites. And for man-made composites, there are polymer matrix composites (PMCs), metal matrix composites (MMCs) and ceramic matrix composites (CMCs). They are made from adding reinforcing fibres into polymer matrix, metal matrix or ceramic matrix respectively. Polymer Matrix Composites (PMCs) - These are the most common and will be the main area of discussion in this website. Also known as FRP - Fibre Reinforced Polymers - these materials use a polymer-based resin as the matrix, and a variety of fibres such as glass and carbon as the reinforcement. For example fibreglass, the first successful modern composites, is one of the polymer matrix composites. It is used for making boat hulls, storage tanks, pipes, and car components.

Metal Matrix Composites (MMCs) - Increasingly found in the mobile industry, these materials use a metal such as aluminium as the matrix, and reinforce it with fibres such as silicon carbide. Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMCs) - Used in very high temperature environments, these materials use a ceramic as the matrix and reinforce it with short fibres, such as those made from silicon carbide and boron nitride.

Disadvantages of composite materials Although composite materials have certain advantages over conventional materials, composites also have some disadvantages. The common one is the high manufacturing costs. However, as improved manufacturing techniques are developed, it will become possible to produce composite materials at higher volumes and at a lower cost than is now possible.

Advantages of composite materials The main advantage of most composites materials are in the weight savings. A quick way to illustrate this advantage is in the strength to weight ratio. Different materials has different strength, that is each material can take different of amount of load for the same volume (cross sectional area) of the material. For a given design, the material used must be strong enough to withstand the load that is to be applied. If a material selected is not strong enough, the part must be enlarged to increase the load bearing capacity. But doing so increases the bulk and weight of the part. Another option is to change material to one that has high enough strength to begin with.

Advantages Weight is a lot lighter. Strength is stronger per pound than steel Form abilityy. Can be shaped to any contour. This means aircraft will not need any rivets sticking out which would cause drag. As above note there is less drag with composites because it can be molded with very smooth lines. Less parts. Longer life. Composites have a longer life expectancy than steel or aluminum. Add these all up together and you have a sleek, fast and very efficient airframe. The main disadvantage is cost. Each part has to be formed on or in a mold and layered and baked while

in vacuummm. So it takes more time to make but the advantages outweigh the cost. You can have an aircraft that operates at $45 dollars an hour flying at 150 knots cruise or a cheaper aircraft that operates at $90 dollars per hour at 120 knots cruise with a lot more maintenance.

Advantages
The main advantage of a direct dental composite over traditional materials such as amalgam is improvedaesthetics. Composites can be made in a wide range of tooth colors allowing near invisible restoration of teeth. Composites are glued into teeth and this strengthens the tooth's structure. The discovery of acid etching (producing enamel irregularities ranging from 5-30 micrometers in depth) of teeth to allow a micromechanical bond to the tooth allows good adhesion of the restoration to the tooth. This means that unlike silver filling there is no need for the dentist to create retentive features destroying healthy tooth. The acid-etch adhesion prevents micro leakage; however, all white fillings will eventually leak slightly. Very high bond strengths to tooth structure, both enamel and dentin, can be achieved with the current generation of dentin bonding agents. [edit]Disadvantages Composite resin restorations have several disadvantages: They are technique-sensitive meaning that without meticulous placement they may fail prematurely. They take up to 50% longer to place than amalgam fillings and are thus more expensive. In addition clinical survival of composite restorations placed in posterior teeth has been shown to be significantly lower than amalgam restorations. [edit]Direct
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dental composites

A hand-held wand that emits primary blue light (max=450-470nm) is used to cure the resin within a dental patient's mouth.

Direct dental composites are placed by the dentist in a clinical setting. Polymerization is accomplished typically with a hand held curing light that emits specific wavelengths keyed to the initiator andcatalyst packages involved. When using a curing light, the light should be held as close to the resin surface as possible, a shield should be placed between the light tip and the operator's eyes, and

that curing time should be increased for darker resin shades. Light cured resins provide denser restorations than self-cured resins because no mixing is required that might introduce air bubble porosity. Direct dental composites can be used for: Filling gaps (diastemas) between teeth using a shell-like veneer or Minor reshaping of teeth Partial crowns on single teeth