Ancient Romans made world’s ‘most durable’ concrete. We might use it to stop rising seas.

[Snaploud]

Scientists are apparently relearning an old building technique that could have huge benefits for our ability to create and maintain modern sea-walls.

Ancient Romans made world’s ‘most durable’ concrete. We might use it to stop rising seas.

By Ben Guarino

Two thousand years ago, Roman builders constructed vast sea walls and harbor piers. The concrete they used outlasted the empire — and still holds lessons for modern engineers, scientists say.

A bunch of half-sunken structures off the Italian coast might sound less impressive than a gladiatorial colosseum. But underwater, the marvel is in the material. The harbor concrete, a mixture of volcanic ash and quicklime, has withstood the sea for two millennia and counting. What's more, it is stronger than when it was first mixed.

The Roman stuff is “an extraordinarily rich material in terms of scientific possibility,” said Philip Brune, a research scientist at DuPont Pioneer who has studied the engineering properties of Roman monuments. “It's the most durable building material in human history, and I say that as an engineer not prone to hyperbole.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...t-to-stop-rising-seas/?utm_term=.2d0eee38c0e1

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

But what have the Romans given us?

 

[StarCruiser]

All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Unfortunately, slavery, abandoning unwanted new born children on rubbish tips, and a corrosive belief in the manifest destiny of their race for which they will crucify you if you, a non-Roman, do not conform to their will.

 

[arch101]

Roman concrete has lasted so long because it has no steel reinforcement like our concrete. Good side: cracks in the concrete don't eventually allow water to corrode the rebar which in turn eats away at the concrete. Bad: low tensile and iffy compressive strength. Not seeing how this fixes rising sea levels.

 

[Snaploud]

Roman concrete has lasted so long because it has no steel reinforcement like our concrete. Good side: cracks in the concrete don't eventually allow water to corrode the rebar which in turn eats away at the concrete. Bad: low tensile and iffy compressive strength. Not seeing how this fixes rising sea levels.

Feel free to actually read the article. The key is how the particular materials in the roman concrete chemically react to the seawater to create tobermorite crystals. The result is a sturdier and more durable material that can hold back the waves and not dissolve in a few decades like modern concrete. Such durable and long-lasting material would be a huge help in creating modern seawalls to prevent flooding as the oceans rise.

 

[BillJ]

Not seeing how this fixes rising sea levels.

It doesn't. It would be used for sea walls to protect coastal areas.

 

[The Lensman]

But what have the Romans given us?

All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Came here for Monty Python references, did not leave disappointed.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I quite like to dip into Meditations by Marcus Aurelius if my ego starts to stroke itself too much.

You have the power to strip away many superfluous troubles located wholly in your judgement, and to possess a large room for yourself embracing in thought the whole cosmos, to consider everlasting time, to think of the rapid change in the parts of each thing, of how short it is from birth until dissolution, and how the void before birth and that after dissolution are equally infinite

http://www.iep.utm.edu/marcus/

 

[publiusr]

Roman concrete has lasted so long because it has no steel reinforcement like our concrete. Good side: cracks in the concrete don't eventually allow water to corrode the rebar which in turn eats away at the concrete. Bad: low tensile and iffy compressive strength. Not seeing how this fixes rising sea levels.

Sea Walls can come in hander. Carbon fiber or some weave might be better than rebar. You want molten glass over the top--for it to really last

 

[arch101]

In addition to this article, I heard the story on NPR on Friday.

 

[urbandefault]

In addition to this article, I heard the story on NPR on Friday.

I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night.

 

[Dryson]

All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Nothing really as most if not all Roman knowledge came from the Greek empires that Rome had conquered.

Rome really didn't invent anything other than the art of plagiarism.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/clips/z6vb4wx

The Romans did not invent drainage, sewers, the alphabet or roads, but they did develop them. They did invent underfloor heating, concrete and the calendar that our modern calendar is based on. Concrete played an important part in Roman building, helping them construct structures like aqueducts that included arches.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Nothing really as most if not all Roman knowledge came from the Greek empires that Rome had conquered.

Rome really didn't invent anything other than the art of plagiarism.

So they were the Apple of that time period..

Runs really fast now.

 

[StarCruiser]

^ ZING!!!

 

[Gary7]

The absolute best concrete ever created was a new formulation specifically invented for the Freedom Tower in NYC.
You can read about it here: "Freedom, Set in Special Concrete."

While the Romans probably rule on best "naturally made" concrete, modern science wins on synthetic superiority.

 

[GreenDragonKnight]

That's right, baby! That's right. I guess it's just second-nature for most of us in the modern world to think of ourselves as being infinitely more advanced than the Ancient World but, in many cases, that's not true at all. Minoan Crete had a lot of "modern"plumbing 4,000 years ago: running water, hot and cold water, flushing toilets, they had it all. And we could not - we absolutely could not - build a pyramid the way the ancient Egyptians did, despite the fact that we have vehicles and machines they could never have dreamed of. (Of course, I know there are those who would say that ETs actually built them, or at least taught us how to build them, but, you know, all claim and no proof...)

 

[Robert Maxwell]

That's right, baby! That's right. I guess it's just second-nature for most of us in the modern world to think of ourselves as being infinitely more advanced than the Ancient World but, in many cases, that's not true at all. Minoan Crete had a lot of "modern"plumbing 4,000 years ago: running water, hot and cold water, flushing toilets, they had it all. And we could not - we absolutely could not - build a pyramid the way the ancient Egyptians did, despite the fact that we have vehicles and machines they could never have dreamed of. (Of course, I know there are those who would say that ETs actually built them, or at least taught us how to build them, but, you know, all claim and no proof...)

Aw, why'd you have to ruin a perfectly good point with that kind of incorrect nonsense?