> It turns out that another chemical reaction, known as carbonation, might also contribute to Roman concrete’s longevity.
Roman concrete was made lime cement (calcium dioxide); which cures via carbonation (hardens with carbon oxide). And adding pozzolan to lime makes it hydrolic (hardens with water). Is it surprising that it can still carbonate some? Modern concrete has steel which rust and crack concrete. You can use fiberglass rebar for longevity, or build without rebar even, but that is more costly and and less efficient.
As I understand it, concrete has excellent resistance to compression but fails easily on traction, while steel bars are exactly the opposite. That is why you put rebar in concrete: the steel handles the traction loads and the concrete handles the compression. This works well because both materials have similar coefficients of thermal expansion, so as the temperature changes they both expand and contract at the same rate. I suppose you can engineer fiberglass to have the same thermal expansion coefficient and use it to replace steel (assuming it is just as strong on traction). But how would you "build without rebar even"? Wouldn't your beams start cracking at the bottom, where they are subject to traction?
Modern concrete has steel rebar, which is very useful, but eventually corrodes. Stainless steel rebar could be used if longevity mattered, but usually it doesn’t because the building will likely become functionally obsolete and need replacing before then.
Related, Grady Hillhouse on the myth of Roman concrete.
> The miracle of modern chemistry has given us a wide variety of admixtures like superplasticizers to improve the characteristics of concrete beyond a Roman engineer’s wildest dreams. So why does it seem that our concrete doesn’t last nearly as long as it should? It’s a complicated question, but one answer is economics. There’s a famous quote that says “Anyone can design a bridge that stands. It takes an engineer to build one that barely stands.” Just like the sculptors job is to chip away all the parts of the marble that don’t look like the subject, a structural engineer’s job is to take away all the extraneous parts of a structure that aren’t necessary to meet the design requirements. And lifespan is just one of the many criteria engineers must consider when designing concrete structures. Most infrastructure is paid for by taxes, and the cost of building to Roman standards is rarely impossible, but often beyond what the public would consider reasonable.
A large part of why Roman concrete lasted longer than ours tends to is that we suffer from a shortage of narcissistic emperors with the means to wield entire economies towards their own immortality.
Most infrastructure is paid for by taxes, and the cost of building to Roman standards is rarely impossible, but often beyond what the public would consider reasonable.
Would you pay 10x more to have something that lasts 100x or even 1000x longer? The upfront cost is higher, but the TCO is ultimately lower. IMHO it's ultimately a form of planned obsolescence. This becomes even more obvious when plenty of expense is spent just on "engineering" to deliberately reduce lifespan.
The thing is, we're actually pretty crappy at knowing what we'll need 50 years from now, much less 500. Doesn't make sense to overbuild for an unknown future, when hundred years from now us will likely be able to do a far better job anyway.
The folk of the 1930s were entirely capable of making poor quality concrete that barely lasted 30 years (source, my father, born 1935, still alive despite having mixed many a batch of concrete and having laboured).
The reason you don't see that walking about is that poor quality 1930s concrete was replace 50+ years ago.
> It turns out that another chemical reaction, known as carbonation, might also contribute to Roman concrete’s longevity.
Roman concrete was made lime cement (calcium dioxide); which cures via carbonation (hardens with carbon oxide). And adding pozzolan to lime makes it hydrolic (hardens with water). Is it surprising that it can still carbonate some? Modern concrete has steel which rust and crack concrete. You can use fiberglass rebar for longevity, or build without rebar even, but that is more costly and and less efficient.
As I understand it, concrete has excellent resistance to compression but fails easily on traction, while steel bars are exactly the opposite. That is why you put rebar in concrete: the steel handles the traction loads and the concrete handles the compression. This works well because both materials have similar coefficients of thermal expansion, so as the temperature changes they both expand and contract at the same rate. I suppose you can engineer fiberglass to have the same thermal expansion coefficient and use it to replace steel (assuming it is just as strong on traction). But how would you "build without rebar even"? Wouldn't your beams start cracking at the bottom, where they are subject to traction?
Just FYI, I think you're looking for "(in) tension" instead of "(on) traction".
Modern concrete has steel rebar, which is very useful, but eventually corrodes. Stainless steel rebar could be used if longevity mattered, but usually it doesn’t because the building will likely become functionally obsolete and need replacing before then.
You could wouldnt even need that. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opferanode
Yes, but you have to replace the sacrificial anode every so often.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_anode
> Stainless steel rebar could be used
There are also coated and non-metallic rebars.
Coated rebar could be good, but the coating can be damaged anywhere from manufacture to installation.
Related, Grady Hillhouse on the myth of Roman concrete.
> The miracle of modern chemistry has given us a wide variety of admixtures like superplasticizers to improve the characteristics of concrete beyond a Roman engineer’s wildest dreams. So why does it seem that our concrete doesn’t last nearly as long as it should? It’s a complicated question, but one answer is economics. There’s a famous quote that says “Anyone can design a bridge that stands. It takes an engineer to build one that barely stands.” Just like the sculptors job is to chip away all the parts of the marble that don’t look like the subject, a structural engineer’s job is to take away all the extraneous parts of a structure that aren’t necessary to meet the design requirements. And lifespan is just one of the many criteria engineers must consider when designing concrete structures. Most infrastructure is paid for by taxes, and the cost of building to Roman standards is rarely impossible, but often beyond what the public would consider reasonable.
https://practical.engineering/blog/2019/3/9/was-roman-concre...
A large part of why Roman concrete lasted longer than ours tends to is that we suffer from a shortage of narcissistic emperors with the means to wield entire economies towards their own immortality.
Most infrastructure is paid for by taxes, and the cost of building to Roman standards is rarely impossible, but often beyond what the public would consider reasonable.
Would you pay 10x more to have something that lasts 100x or even 1000x longer? The upfront cost is higher, but the TCO is ultimately lower. IMHO it's ultimately a form of planned obsolescence. This becomes even more obvious when plenty of expense is spent just on "engineering" to deliberately reduce lifespan.
The thing is, we're actually pretty crappy at knowing what we'll need 50 years from now, much less 500. Doesn't make sense to overbuild for an unknown future, when hundred years from now us will likely be able to do a far better job anyway.
> we suffer from a shortage of narcissistic emperors
not recently
but not ones willing to put the effort into properly fixing a pond.
If you're talking about the algae, it came back after Obama's $34m renovation, too.
Turns out algae is hard to kill, especially when you feed the reflecting pool from a tidal basin.
Who's pond? I'm willing to bet billionaires' estates have well tended ponds, contrary to public ponds. Or a reflecting pool.
A picture of one of these toilets would have been useful.
https://www.science.org/cms/10.1126/sciadv.aeb0754/asset/924...
From: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aeb0754
I’ve often wondered why every good sidewalk I see has a WPA stamp on it from the 1930s and the modern ones are all crumbled and uneven.
https://share.gemini.google/5g0gxGyOmAPD
.. and, also, ...
The folk of the 1930s were entirely capable of making poor quality concrete that barely lasted 30 years (source, my father, born 1935, still alive despite having mixed many a batch of concrete and having laboured).
The reason you don't see that walking about is that poor quality 1930s concrete was replace 50+ years ago.
Survivorship bias in action.
Thinking of the ww2 plane with holes meme right now.