Benefits Of Concrete

Introduction

Concrete is a composite material composed of water, coarse granular material embedded in hard matrix of material (the cement or binder) that fills the space among the particles and glues them together. Concrete is known by Romans as old as 12 million years. It was a revolutionary material laid in the shape of arches, vaults and domes. Concrete is widely used for making architectural structures, foundations, brick/block walls, pavements, bridges/overpasses, highways, runways, parking structures, dams, pools/reservoirs, pipes, footings for gates, fences and poles and even boats. From roman to now Concrete has taken many designs. Present researchers have experimented with addition of materials to create improved properties such as strength or electrical conductivity.

Why concrete?

With fastest growing world’s big constructions, what else we could use to make structures like Eiffel tower? To last long as many as for mankind lives on the earth. Marble? Expensive and probably the blocks at the bottom would crumble. Steel or aluminum? Cost matters. Wood? Less stable, easily prone to fire and damage.

Concrete provides superior fire resistance compared with other alternatives such as steel, wood, aluminums and other construction material and gains strength over time. And gives long service life. Concrete is used more than any other manmade material in the world. As of 2006, about 7.5 billion cubic meters of concrete are made each year, more than one cubic meter for every person on Earth.

Stone and concrete have similar properties, but concrete is much easier to use: you can pour it into moulds to create any shape, and while pouring you can include rebar within the mould to make up for the problem that both stone and concret...

... middle of paper ...

...nsisted of 10,251 cubic yards of concrete placed in a 58.5 hour period using two concrete pumps and two dedicated concrete batch plants.

Conclusion

We initiate a huge effort to map materials by their various properties, to help designers make good choices. And one can come to the conclusion that if the matter of subject is construction/architectural Concrete exhibits properties such as resistance to fire and damage, great strength, recycling property, availability, cost, & easy to shape. For all above properties one should select the Concrete as the material for the construction.

All of the above we can say that Concrete use in the modern world is exceeded only by that of naturally occurring water.

Bibliography

1. Wikipedia.

2. Material science of Concrete.

3. Mechanical engineering science text book.

4. Competitive text book GATE.

5. Other personal notes.