JOHN SOMMERS

CONCRETE
INTRO

Concrete was invented by the Roman people and

dates back to around 37 B.C.. The Romans are

incredible for inventing such a substance. By using

concrete a large amount of the structures made from

it, are still standing. They were used in such structures

like roads and aqueducts.

 SECRET

There has also been a discover on the secret to how the Romans

made the concrete so durable. Them Romans first mixed lime and

volcanic rock.
 MODERN CONCRETE
Portland concrete is the kind of concrete that people use commonly.

This type of concrete does not have the lime-volcanic combination.

Portland concrete tends to wear quickly in seawater, while on the

other hand the Romans worked better in seawater. Portland

concrete only has a service life of less than 50 years, that is nothing

compared to the Romans. The Romans concrete has been lasting

thousands of years and counting.

 WHY ROMAN CONCRETE WAS SO GOOD
The Romans concrete wasn't just better than modern concrete, it

was easy to produce. To produce Portland concrete, carbon is

emitted by the burning fuel used to heat a mix of limestone and

clays to 2642 degrees. Romans used much less lime, and made it

from limestone baked at 1652 or lower. This used much less fuel

and was much more affordable to produce. Ancient Roman builders

may have invented a revolutionary thing for modern architecture.

 STRUCTURES

Two of the the most significant structures in Rome were built with

concrete. Those structures were the Pantheon and the Colosseum.

They have survived for centuries and are still in great condition,

they have had little to no maintenance. In the Pantheon, a temple to

the gods, was completed in A.D. 128. Its dome is still the largest

unreinforced concrete dome in the world.

 COLOSSEUM

The Colosseum was built in A.D. 80, it seated 50000. It is crazy

how a structure purely made out of concrete could handle 50000

people going in and out frequently. Over all these years it has had

little to no maintenance and looks almost the same as it did when it

was built.
 CHANGE

Concrete has truly changed the modern day, without concrete we would not be able to build many of

the things that we now have. Concrete is the second most human-used substance on earth after water.

It has been used from everything from gargantuan public works projects to skyscrapers to garden

figures. It is recorded that approximately 3.7 billing tons of concrete was produced globally in 2012.

There already is around 40 tons of concrete for every person on earth already existing. Portland

Concrete is really taking advantage of this market and going through the roff with production. The

production has nearly quadrupled since 1970. The global output of cement may possibly reach 5

billion tons by the year 2030 and then possibly 18 billion by the year 2050.