The concrete dome of the Pantheon in Rome remains stable enough for visitors to walk beneath, and some Roman harbours have underwater concrete elements that have not been repaired for two millennia – even though they are in regions often shaken by earthquakes.
Whence this remarkable resilience of Roman concrete architecture? It’s all down to the chemistry.
It’s basically the self healing properties of Roman concrete that I find fascinating.
Oh, it’s definitely interesting.
I think people here just got rubbed the wrong way because these articles often make it seem like Roman concrete is better than ours, rather than “look what they accidentally did occasionally”.
We can make self healing concrete today, we just usually opt not to, because the downsides or unpredictable nature makes it unsuitable for the significant cost increase.
The phrase “the bridge is infested with bacterial spore colonies” isn’t one that makes engineers happy.
Yeah, I think people got rubbed the wrong way only from the title. I don’t think they bothered to read it. I don’t think the article in any way emphasised that Roman concrete is better than modern; rather it talked about findings of certain researchers. It was the chemistry which I found interesting.
Agreed. The article doesn’t really make Roman concrete sound great, it even mentions how limited in availability the volcanic ash they used was.
If we wanted to build to last longer, I imagine not using iron-based reinforcement would get us most of the way there, especially where ice isn’t a concern.