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Why Roman concrete is still stronger than RAAC (and other modern concretes)
(www.chemistryworld.com)
this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
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Is it that we don't know how to make concrete of equal/greater resilience? Or that modern concrete optimizes for something else (I'm guessing cost)? I didn't RTFA.
We mostly know how they made theirs, and could make our own version of it, but we optimize for different things.
The Romans optimized for "that's cement and it works well", because they didn't have anything close to the level of chemical understanding we do now.
We optimize for strength and predictability. Ours can hold a higher load and will likely need repairing about when we predict.
Roman concrete can sometimes, in certain circumstances and with variable effectiveness, repair certain types of damage by chemically interacting with the environment. So maybe it crumbles in a decade or maybe it lasts a millennium.
Article basically points at some researchers who are looking to see if they can bring that healing capability to modern concrete in a predictable and more versatile fashion.
Cool! Thanks for the info.