concrete

From residential homes and skyscrapers to art sculptures and footpaths, concrete is everywhere you look and it's difficult to imagine the modern world without it. As the most widely-used human-made material on Earth, it also plays a huge role in global carbon emissions thanks to its energy intensive production. This means that even slight adjustments to how we make it can have big impacts on its environmental footprint. And as research continue to show, scientists working in this space are not short of ideas.Concrete has…

Scientists continue to make promising inroads around more durable forms of concrete, and engineers at Melbourne's RMIT University have been operating at the cutting edge of this research for some time. Their latest example simultaneously tackles the mounting waste generated by the ongoing pandemic, demonstrating a form of concrete that incorporates shredded personal protective equipment (PPE) for improved performance.RMIT's researchers haven't been afraid to get creative when thinking up new approaches to concrete,…

The Saturn V moon rocket launched in 1967 as part of the Apollo 4 mission.Photo: NASAOn November 9, 1967, a 363-foot-tall (111-meter) Saturn V rocket launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, generating 7.5 million pounds of thrust. The blast created by the Apollo 4 liftoff was among theloudest noises ever produced by our species, scientists calculated at the time. In fact, the roar was so loud that it sparked a rumor that the Saturn V launch melted concrete and lit grass on fire over a mile away.A team of scientists…

The unmanned Skylab station was launched into orbit by a Saturn V booster. The Saturn V rocket carried humans to the moon and remains the most powerful rocket to reach orbit to date. Credit: NASAPhysics-based acoustical models and historical data combine to correct common misconceptions about the most powerful rocket launched to date.The <span class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Saturn</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Saturn…

The strength and durability of cement has made it a staple building material around the world, but engineers from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia have finally come up with a way to manufacture it at a lower cost by swapping in some recycled materials.Making concrete uses a fairly simple recipe. A binding agent, which is usually a paste-like material called portland cement, is mixed with water and aggregates: a combination of sand, rocks, and gravel. Adjusting the amount of the various ingredients…

In recent years, we've heard about efforts to replace some of the aggregate used in concrete with crumbled used tires. Now, however, scientists have succeeded in producing good quality concrete in which all of the aggregate has been replaced with tire particles.Concrete consists of three parts: water, a cement which binds everything together, and an aggregate such as sand or gravel. That aggregate has to be mined from the ground, and is actually now in short supply in many parts of the world.Discarded tires can be…

There is a renewed focus on space, which has turned into a new frontier for humanity to conquer. While several nations are sending missions to outer space – as far as Mars – colonising either the Moon or Mars is understandably difficult. Besides logistical issues, there are practical problems. For example, transporting one brick to Mars can cost more than two million US dollars. This makes any effort to build housing complexes incredibly expensive. However, scientists at England's University of Manchester have found a way…

Wow, your father had some colorful decor in his childhood room. When you finally unlock the door to your dad, John’s, room in Madison, you find it primed for puzzles. That's definitely not something unusual for the horror puzzler, but nor is it the most wholesome family environment. The puzzle here is deceptively simple, but there are some things you need to prepare and some small facets you might overlook. If you’re stumped, we’ve got you covered. Here's how to solve the Madison concrete block puzzle in…

The researchers found that adding denitrifying bacteria can improve the compressive strength and tensile splitting strength by 30.3% and 20.3%, respectively.The addition of denitrifying bacteria to recycled coarse aggregate concrete can significantly improve its freeze-thaw resistanceConcrete is one of the most frequently used construction materials due to its cheap cost, strong compressive strength, and ease of manufacture. However, natural aggregates for mixing with concrete, including sand and gravel, are in limited…

Playing an indispensable role in global construction, cement contributes around seven percent of annual greenhouse gas emissions owing to its carbon-intensive production process. Scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder claim to have uncovered a greener path forward by tapping into a species of cloudy microalgae, which naturally produce limestone particles through photosynthesis and could turn buildings into carbon sinks as a result.Limestone is a key ingredient in cement, but adding it to the mix is incredibly…