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from the Roman-concrete-lasts-2000-years...-why-not-our-roads? dept.
The story of concrete is so ancient that we don't even know when and where it begins. It is a story of discovery, experimentation, and mystery. Emperors and kings became legends for erecting great concrete structures, some of which are still a mystery to engineers today. Many of history's most skilled architects found inspiration in slabs of the gray building material. Common bricklayers advanced the technology, and a con man played a crucial role in the development of concrete recipes.
Today, the world is literally filled with concrete, from roads and sidewalks to bridges and dams. The word itself has become a synonym for something that is real and tangible. Press your handprints into the sidewalk and sign your name to history. This is the story of concrete.
[...] Let's get this out of the way right here: cement and concrete are not the same thing. Cement, a mixture of powdered limestone and clay, is an ingredient in concrete along with water, sand, and gravel.
So ubiquitous and fundamental, that nobody thinks about it. Its inventor is unknown, but that person changed history.
Related: Volcanic Rocks Resembling Roman Concrete Explain Record Uplift in Italian Caldera
Roman Concrete Explained
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Nuke on Tuesday October 17 2017, @01:21PM
The reason most present-day concrete structures will eventually fall apart is that they use steel re-inforcement, which will rust away. Post-tensioned concrete is even worse as the concrete does not do much to protect the steel.
Early concrete structures (Roman and 19th century) were like monolithic cast concrete versions of brick structures - un-reinforced and nothing in tensile stress. They were inefficient structures in terms of cost and material usage, but they will survive for 1000's of years. In the UK it has been said that the railway viaducts of the former Highland Railway in Scotland will be the artifacts which will survive the longest from the period of the Industrial Revolution - they might puzzle archeologists in the year 10,000 like Stonehenge does now.