The Experience of Designing Building Materials

The evolution of views on the development of composite materials is analyzed from the point of view of paradigm shift based on basic models of a continuous self-developing environment towards paradigms based on models of a structured self-developing environment based on ideas and methods of a systematic approach and synergetics. A system approach can reduce or even eliminate the uncertainty inherent in the problem being solved; to reconstruct it in models that meet the objectives of the study; identify objects, properties and relationships of the investigated system, taking into account the mutual influence of the external environment. It is shown that the structural organization of the material determines the structural design of the product or structure and largely determines the functional properties of the entire system. Composite materials are considered as large complex systems formed on a modular principle: integrative properties are approximately determined on the basis of autonomous studies of separate subsystems. Separate subsystems are supposed to have a certain degree of autonomy; the introduction of custom reference models with the simultaneous decentralization of modules by inputs is possible. It is shown that the conditions for transferring the results of autonomous studies to the system as a whole are determined by the completeness of understanding the processes of formation of the structure and properties of the system. When developing composites, the PATTERN method and the SATURN technology are used to determine the criteria for assessing the relative importance, mutual utility, state and timing of research and development, maintaining a reasonable balance between the internal logic of science and its practical significance. Partial criteria and formalization of the generalized quality criterion of building material are analyzed. As an illustration, the definition of flocculation conditions in a disperse system is given on the basis of its representation as a system of particles moving under the action of gravitational and pair interaction forces, interaction with boundaries and a dispersion medium. It is shown that the uniformity of the steady-state configuration and the sedimentation stability of the polydisperse system are mainly determined by the volumetric degree of filling. Given the complexity of the composite as an object of study (multidimensionality, multiconnectedness, incompleteness of diagnostic information), diagnostic interpretation of the analyzed factors, the probabilistic nature of diagnostic information the necessity of using methods of both specific and abstract logical cognition is shown (each new logical stage continues the previous one and serves as the initial prerequisite for the previous one).