Ancient Roman Concrete Is About to Revolutionize Modern Architecture

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johnnydawg68

Chairperson, People's Front of Saint Domingo
Very interesting article. I love stuff like this. Also reminds me of this:

[video=youtube;ExWfh6sGyso]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso[/video]

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-06-14/ancient-roman-concrete-is-about-to-revolutionize-modern-architecture#r=most popular

After 2,000 years, a long-lost secret behind the creation of one of the world’s most durable man-made creations ever—Roman concrete—has finally been discovered by an international team of scientists, and it may have a significant impact on how we build cities of the future.

As anyone who’s ever visited Italy knows, the ancient Romans were master engineers. Their roads, aqueducts, and temples are still holding up remarkably well despite coming under siege over the centuries by waves of sacking marauders, mobs of tourists, and the occasional earthquake. One such structure that has fascinated geologists and engineers throughout the ages is the Roman harbor. Over the past decade, researchers from Italy and the U.S. have analyzed 11 harbors in the Mediterranean basin where, in many cases, 2,000-year-old (and sometimes older) breakwaters constructed out of Roman concrete stand perfectly intact despite constant pounding by the sea.

The most common blend of modern concrete, known as Portland cement, a formulation in use for nearly 200 years, can’t come close to matching that track record, says Marie Jackson, a research engineer at the University of California at Berkeley who was part of the Roman concrete research team. “The maritime environment, in particular, is not good for Portland concrete. In seawater, it has a service life of less than 50 years. After that, it begins to erode,” Jackson says.

The researchers now know why ancient Roman concrete is so superior. They extracted from the floor of Italy’s Pozzuoili Bay, in the northern tip of the Bay of Naples, a sample of concrete breakwater that dates back to 37 B.C. and analyzed its mineral components at research labs in Europe and the U.S., including at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source. The analysis, the scientists believe, reveals the lost recipe of Roman concrete, and it also points to how much more stable and less environmentally damaging it is than today’s blend.

That’s why the findings, which were published earlier this month in the Journal of the American Ceramic Society and American Mineralogist, are considered so important for today’s industrial engineers and the future of the world’s cities and ports. “The building industry has been searching for a way to make more durable concretes,” Jackson points out.

Another remarkable quality of Roman concrete is that its production was exceptionally green, a far cry from modern techniques. “It’s not that modern concrete isn’t good—it’s so good we use 19 billion tons of it a year,” says Paulo Monteiro, a research collaborator and professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. “The problem is that manufacturing Portland cement accounts for 7 percent of the carbon dioxide that industry puts into the air.”

The secret to Roman concrete lies in its unique mineral formulation and production technique. As the researchers explain in a press release outlining their findings, “The Romans made concrete by mixing lime and volcanic rock. For underwater structures, lime and volcanic ash were mixed to form mortar, and this mortar and volcanic tuff were packed into wooden forms. The seawater instantly triggered a hot chemical reaction. The lime was hydrated—incorporating water molecules into its structure—and reacted with the ash to cement the whole mixture together.”

The Portland cement formula crucially lacks the lyme and volcanic ash mixture. As a result, it doesn’t bind quite as well when compared with the Roman concrete, researchers found. It is this inferior binding property that explains why structures made of Portland cement tend to weaken and crack after a few decades of use, Jackson says.

Adopting the materials (more volcanic ash) and production techniques of ancient Roman could revolutionize today’s building industry with a sturdier, less CO2-intensive concrete. “The question remains, can we translate the principles from ancient Rome to the production of modern concrete? I think that is what is so exciting about this new area of research,” Jackson says.

Of course, if you are no fan of concrete architecture, you’re out of luck. It could be with us for a few millenia more.
 

I love things like this. As we develop as a race we think we are becoming more clever and technologically superior..... but we are forgetting the Foundations on which our whole existance has developed from. Newer is not always better.
 
I love things like this. As we develop as a race we think we are becoming more clever and technologically superior..... but we are forgetting the Foundations on which our whole existance has developed from. Newer is not always better.

Exactly!
 
It is one of the scariest parts of human history that the Romans were - in many areas - as techonologically advanced as we were in the 18th or even 19th century, and yet lost it all because of idiocy, corruption and greed. Its also scary how few people get taught about it in school.
 

Its why I have an issue with all this liberalised idea of progressivism turning away from tradition isnt always the best. Idea look at the research findings of single parent families putting many youngsters at a disadvantage growing up, yet dare raise the issue and your small minded etc.
 
It is one of the scariest parts of human history that the Romans were - in many areas - as techonologically advanced as we were in the 18th or even 19th century, and yet lost it all because of idiocy, corruption and greed. Its also scary how few people get taught about it in school.

Agreed. When I was younger I never truly appreciated what the 'Dark Ages' meant. I thought it must have been due to the Black Death or something - I never really considered it, basically - and was under the assumption that human advancement only ever increased with time. It's only fairly recently, as an adult, that I realised the Romans and Greeks (especially) were masters of all forms of modern science, maths, engineering, philosophy, law, governance e.t.c thousands of years ago. It made my head spin considering that, if not for the f**king barbarians at the gate, the Industrial Revolution might have happened a thousand years or more before it actually did.
Lord knows where humanity would be now if that had happened.
 
Its why I have an issue with all this liberalised idea of progressivism turning away from tradition isnt always the best. Idea look at the research findings of single parent families putting many youngsters at a disadvantage growing up, yet dare raise the issue and your small minded etc.
Hardly small minded. Statistical evidence backs you up.
Slightly off topic though I would think?
 
Agreed. When I was younger I never truly appreciated what the 'Dark Ages' meant. I thought it must have been due to the Black Death or something - I never really considered it, basically - and was under the assumption that human advancement only ever increased with time. It's only fairly recently, as an adult, that I realised the Romans and Greeks (especially) were masters of all forms of modern science, maths, engineering, philosophy, law, governance e.t.c thousands of years ago. It made my head spin considering that, if not for the f**king barbarians at the gate, the Industrial Revolution might have happened a thousand years or more before it actually did.
Lord knows where humanity would be now if that had happened.

had it happened sooner who knows what today would be mate would the British have mastered the world had the revolution occured then? most likely no and from that the power shift in nations would of been totally different the Roman Empire may still have been yet it could have fallen to the nazi's etc. who knows
 

Agreed. When I was younger I never truly appreciated what the 'Dark Ages' meant. I thought it must have been due to the Black Death or something - I never really considered it, basically - and was under the assumption that human advancement only ever increased with time. It's only fairly recently, as an adult, that I realised the Romans and Greeks (especially) were masters of all forms of modern science, maths, engineering, philosophy, law, governance e.t.c thousands of years ago. It made my head spin considering that, if not for the f**king barbarians at the gate, the Industrial Revolution might have happened a thousand years or more before it actually did.
Lord knows where humanity would be now if that had happened.

The barbarians were just a symptom, the real problem was the madness that infected the ruling class and the greed of the armies that the elite used to fight each other. I suppose the difference between us and them is that we learned something from our Civil War, and they didnt from all of theirs.
 
you can use hindsight in most area's of history look at how much religion hindered medical developments in the middle ages in Britain, who knows years down the line in a ****ed up world people may look back and say how the allies hindered medical/genetical developments by stopping the Nazi's and their human experimenting/vivsection etc. madness
 
And today, what is hampering medical and scientific development is the corrupt religion of greed for money! Plus la change! I warn my pupils that we're not far from another dark age. Pupils are comfortable and complacent about knowledge, our curriculum teaches them about facts, rather than how to think, and there has been an increasing emphasis in education, in producing factory and business fodder, rather than the free thinkers needed for development.
 
And today, what is hampering medical and scientific development is the corrupt religion of greed for money! Plus la change! I warn my pupils that we're not far from another dark age. Pupils are comfortable and complacent about knowledge, our curriculum teaches them about facts, rather than how to think, and there has been an increasing emphasis in education, in producing factory and business fodder, rather than the free thinkers needed for development.

you a teacher too mate?
 

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