Concrete is the most widely known and used material when it comes to buildings and constructions--thanks to its sturdiness it provides, but when it comes to bending, not so much is going on there. Now, scientists and researchers have developed a new type of concrete that enables buildings to bend when under pressure or withstand natural calamities like earthquakes.
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It is created with ash material
Scientists from the Swinburne Univerity of Technology in Melbourne have created and developed a new kind of concrete that involves the use of ash, which is a byproduct of burning coal to get power. It may sound worrying to some people, but this is actually an old trick used bu Romans back in their ancient days where engineers mixed quicklime and ash from volcanoes to create their construction material, which can be seen still standing today.
Lead researcher, Behzad Nematollahi, said in a statement that "Concrete is the most widely used construction material in the world. In fact, it is the second-most consumed material by human beings after water. Its quality has a massive effect on the resilience of our infrastructures, such as buildings, bridges, and tunnels."
It is environmentally friendly and sturdy
The team claims it requires 35% less energy to make this bendable concrete and 76% less carbon dioxide, which makes this whole process good for the environment. The polymer fibers that are inside the said concrete allows itself to sustain and bolster multiple small fractures to not separate and break into pieces. They also noted that Geopolymer composite is aimed to make a different approach and alternatives to portland cement. This composite is developed as a dry mix that uses only small amounts of solid activator to eliminate unnecessary heat curing.
Nematollahi has said that it is 400 times more bendable than other regular concrete that we have now, which makes this creation very much ideal to use whenever there are earthquakes, especially in places prone to earthquakes.
The Swinburne University team of researchers is not the first group to develop and investigate bendable concrete and, sure enough, not a new concept. This was first developed by a civil and environmental engineer professor at the University of Michigan, Dr. Victor Li, which took place in the early 1900s. Though as of last year, producing affordable material is not on the table as it costs four times more expensive to make than regular and traditional concrete. The only team that came close to finding a way to make this material less costly were researchers from LSU.
This new type of concrete is very useful for construction, building in areas where the vulnerability in natural disasters, especially earthquakes are widely known, making this bendable concrete material one of the main uses for those kinds of situations.
