JOHN SOMMERS
CONCRETE
INTRO
Concrete was invented by the Roman people and
dates back to around 37 B.C.. The Romans are
incredible for inventing such a substance. By using
concrete a large amount of the structures made from
it, are still standing. They were used in such structures
like roads and aqueducts.
SECRET
There has also been a discover on the secret to how the Romans
made the concrete so durable. Them Romans first mixed lime and
volcanic rock.
MODERN CONCRETE
Portland concrete is the kind of concrete that people use commonly.
This type of concrete does not have the lime-volcanic combination.
Portland concrete tends to wear quickly in seawater, while on the
other hand the Romans worked better in seawater. Portland
concrete only has a service life of less than 50 years, that is nothing
compared to the Romans. The Romans concrete has been lasting
thousands of years and counting.
WHY ROMAN CONCRETE WAS SO GOOD
The Romans concrete wasn't just better than modern concrete, it
was easy to produce. To produce Portland concrete, carbon is
emitted by the burning fuel used to heat a mix of limestone and
clays to 2642 degrees. Romans used much less lime, and made it
from limestone baked at 1652 or lower. This used much less fuel
and was much more affordable to produce. Ancient Roman builders
may have invented a revolutionary thing for modern architecture.
STRUCTURES
Two of the the most significant structures in Rome were built with
concrete. Those structures were the Pantheon and the Colosseum.
They have survived for centuries and are still in great condition,
they have had little to no maintenance. In the Pantheon, a temple to
the gods, was completed in A.D. 128. Its dome is still the largest
unreinforced concrete dome in the world.
COLOSSEUM
The Colosseum was built in A.D. 80, it seated 50000. It is crazy
how a structure purely made out of concrete could handle 50000
people going in and out frequently. Over all these years it has had
little to no maintenance and looks almost the same as it did when it
was built.
CHANGE
Concrete has truly changed the modern day, without concrete we would not be able to build many of
the things that we now have. Concrete is the second most human-used substance on earth after water.
It has been used from everything from gargantuan public works projects to skyscrapers to garden
figures. It is recorded that approximately 3.7 billing tons of concrete was produced globally in 2012.
There already is around 40 tons of concrete for every person on earth already existing. Portland
Concrete is really taking advantage of this market and going through the roff with production. The
production has nearly quadrupled since 1970. The global output of cement may possibly reach 5
billion tons by the year 2030 and then possibly 18 billion by the year 2050.