Concrete

Concrete

Concrete is a building material made from a mixture of cement, sand, gravel, stone and water. Cement is added to the mixture of concrete to harden. The cement to be in contact with water, undergoes a chemical reaction that causes it to harden. Is a solid of great compressive but low tensile strength. Due to its liquid form, can take any shape to harden, so the concrete has replaced other building materials. It is widely used because it is durable, water proofing, it can take any form and is very cheap.

Concrete was used by ancient Egyptians, and developed by the ancient Romans, allowing new forms of architecture such as domes, vaults, bridges and other structures that require resistance to water. This material was invaluable importance for the architecture until the advent of reinforced concrete.

Reinforced concrete (it was invented by Joseph Monier in 1849) was developed by adding steel bars (tensile strength) in the form of mesh inside the concrete structure (compressive strength).



The use of reinforced concrete is very versatile, can be used to construct railway ties, pipes, floors, arches, bridges, foundations, columns, walls, floors, and a limitless variety of coverings, and it does not require the addition of other structural materials. Its manufacture is really cheap because it requires fine pieces of steel and concrete that is very affordable.

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Concrete-shell construction permits the erection of vast vaults and domes with a concrete and steel content so reduced that the thickness is comparatively less than that of an eggshell. Precast-concrete construction, employs bricks, slabs, and supports made under optimal factory conditions to increase waterproofing and solidity, to decrease time and cost in erection, and to reduce expansion and contractions. Prestressed concrete provides bearing members into which reinforcement is set under tension to produce a live force to resist a particular load. Since the member acts like a spring, it can carry a greater load than an unstressed member of the same size.



“tilt-up and tiltwall are two terms used to describe the same process. For a tilt-up concrete building, the walls are created by assembling forms and pouring large slabs of cement called panels directly at the job site. The cement panels are then tilted up into position around the building's slab to form the walls. Because the concrete tiltwall forms are assembled and poured directly at the job site, no transportation of panels is required. One major benefit of this is that the size of the panels is limited only by the needs of the building and the strength of the concrete panels themselves.” Tiltup.com