Concrete is all around us. It is found in every city, most houses and apartment buildings, roads, paths, bridges and other buildings are made of concrete. But how much do we actually know about concrete?
Imagine a world without concrete. Without it, we would not be able to build solid houses or buildings, and we would probably still use straw or other lightweight materials to build our homes. In addition, we would not have the safe and flat roads we know and use today.
Modern concrete, which is used today, is an innovation of Joseph Aspdin, from the first half of the 19th century. Although Aspdin is not the first to see the usefulness of concrete in construction, he is credited with beginning to use concrete as a material used today around the world. Joseph Aspdin, a British industrialist and cement producer, patented Portland cement in Leeds in 1824, the most commonly used type of cement ever, from which most concrete is made worldwide and which is still in use today.
However, the beginning of the use of materials that had an almost identical composition as today's concrete and which can actually be called its predecessor, goes much deeper into the past. Even the ancient Egyptians used a mineral binder that was very similar to concrete in everything. It was the main material during the construction of the famous pyramids, the grandiose tombs of the Egyptian pharaohs, which are today one of the biggest tourist attractions not only in Egypt, but also in the world.
A concrete-like agent was also used by the Romans. Their builders mixed lime, water and volcanic ash that they exploited from Vesuvius, which was called pozzolan (lat. Puzzolana), in a place near Vesuvius. Vitruvius, an ancient Roman builder, architect and writer, wrote that four types of pozzolans were used - gray, black, red and white. The Romans recognized the waterproof qualities of this material and used it to build the port of Cosa, the remains of which were discovered in 1951 and today represent the only proof of the technical achievements of the old world.
The Pantheon, one of the greatest landmarks of modern Rome, was erected in 126 AD during the reign of Emperor Hadrian, and still represents the largest dome in the world made of unreinforced concrete. Although construction, architecture, technique and technology have advanced greatly since then, nothing like the Pantheon has been built in the world. If you ever visit Italy and Rome, be sure to visit the Pantheon and see for yourself how well it still holds.
The largest concrete structure is located in China
185 meters high and 2,309 meters long, the Three Gorges Dam on Asia’s largest river, the Yangtze River, is the largest concrete structure in the world. The dam with a hydroelectric power plant was built from 1994 to 2006, and can produce an incredible 22,500 MW of power. Its water intake contains as much water as in the Upper Lake in the USA and Canada, otherwise the second largest lake on the planet. More than 1.3 million people were evicted due to the construction of this concrete giant.
What is most interesting to me about concrete is that its maturation lasts for 100 years. Only when that period is over can we say whether the concrete we made something from is good or bad