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Roman concrete

From Wikipedia, in a visual modern way
The Pantheon in Rome is an example of Roman concrete construction.
The Pantheon in Rome is an example of Roman concrete construction.
Caesarea harbour: an example of underwater Roman concrete technology on a large scale
Caesarea harbour: an example of underwater Roman concrete technology on a large scale

Roman concrete, also called opus caementicium, was used in construction in ancient Rome. Like its modern equivalent, Roman concrete was based on a hydraulic-setting cement added to an aggregate.

Many buildings and structures still standing today, such as bridges, reservoirs and aqueducts, were built with this material, which attests to both its versatility and its durability. Its strength was sometimes enhanced by the incorporation of pozzolanic ash where available (particularly in the Bay of Naples). The addition of ash prevented cracks from spreading. Recent research has shown that the incorporation of lime clasts allowed the concrete to self-repair cracks.[1][2]

Roman concrete was in widespread use from about 150 BC;[3] some scholars believe it was developed a century before that.[4]

It was often used in combination with facings and other supports,[5] and interiors were further decorated by stucco, fresco paintings, or coloured marble. Further innovative developments in the material, part of the so-called concrete revolution, contributed to structurally complicated forms. The most prominent example of these is the Pantheon dome, the world's largest and oldest unreinforced concrete dome.[6]

Roman concrete differs from modern concrete in that the aggregates often included larger components; hence, it was laid rather than poured.[7] Roman concretes, like any hydraulic concrete, were usually able to set underwater, which was useful for bridges and other waterside construction.

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Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome

In modern historiography, Ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom, Roman Republic and Roman Empire until the fall of the western empire.

Pozzolana

Pozzolana

Pozzolana or pozzuolana, also known as pozzolanic ash, is a natural siliceous or siliceous-aluminous material which reacts with calcium hydroxide in the presence of water at room temperature. In this reaction insoluble calcium silicate hydrate and calcium aluminate hydrate compounds are formed possessing cementitious properties. The designation pozzolana is derived from one of the primary deposits of volcanic ash used by the Romans in Italy, at Pozzuoli. The modern definition of pozzolana encompasses any volcanic material, predominantly composed of fine volcanic glass, that is used as a pozzolan. Note the difference with the term pozzolan, which exerts no bearing on the specific origin of the material, as opposed to pozzolana, which can only be used for pozzolans of volcanic origin, primarily composed of volcanic glass.

Conglomerate (geology)

Conglomerate (geology)

Conglomerate is a clastic sedimentary rock that is composed of a substantial fraction of rounded to subangular gravel-size clasts. A conglomerate typically contains a matrix of finer-grained sediments, such as sand, silt, or clay, which fills the interstices between the clasts. The clasts and matrix are typically cemented by calcium carbonate, iron oxide, silica, or hardened clay.

Stucco

Stucco

Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture. Stucco can be applied on construction materials such as metal, expanded metal lath, concrete, cinder block, or clay brick and adobe for decorative and structural purposes.

Fresco

Fresco

Fresco is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the painting becomes an integral part of the wall. The word fresco is derived from the Italian adjective fresco meaning "fresh", and may thus be contrasted with fresco-secco or secco mural painting techniques, which are applied to dried plaster, to supplement painting in fresco. The fresco technique has been employed since antiquity and is closely associated with Italian Renaissance painting. The word fresco is commonly and inaccurately used in English to refer to any wall painting regardless of the plaster technology or binding medium. This, in part, contributes to a misconception that the most geographically and temporally common wall painting technology was the painting into wet lime plaster. Even in apparently Buon fresco technology, the use of supplementary organic materials was widespread, if underrecognized.

Roman architectural revolution

Roman architectural revolution

The Roman architectural revolution, also known as the concrete revolution, is the name sometimes given to the widespread use in Roman architecture of the previously little-used architectural forms of the arch, vault, and dome. For the first time in history, their potential was fully exploited in the construction of a wide range of civil engineering structures, public buildings, and military facilities. These included amphitheatres, aqueducts, baths, bridges, circuses, dams, roads, and temples.

Pantheon, Rome

Pantheon, Rome

The Pantheon is a former Roman temple and, since 609 AD, a Catholic church in Rome, Italy, on the site of an earlier temple commissioned by Marcus Agrippa during the reign of Augustus. It was rebuilt by the emperor Hadrian and probably dedicated c. 126 AD. Its date of construction is uncertain, because Hadrian chose not to inscribe the new temple but rather to retain the inscription of Agrippa's older temple, which had burned down.

Historic references

The so-called "Temple of Mercury" in Baiae, a Roman frigidarium pool of a bathhouse built in the 1st century BC[8] containing the oldest surviving concrete dome,[9] and largest one before the Pantheon.[10]
The so-called "Temple of Mercury" in Baiae, a Roman frigidarium pool of a bathhouse built in the 1st century BC[8] containing the oldest surviving concrete dome,[9] and largest one before the Pantheon.[10]

Vitruvius, writing around 25 BC in his Ten Books on Architecture, distinguished types of materials appropriate for the preparation of lime mortars. For structural mortars, he recommended pozzolana (pulvis puteolanus in Latin), the volcanic sand from the beds of Pozzuoli, which are brownish-yellow-gray in colour in that area around Naples, and reddish-brown near Rome. Vitruvius specifies a ratio of 1 part lime to 3 parts pozzolana for mortar used in buildings and a 1:2 ratio for underwater work.[11][12]

The Romans first used hydraulic concrete in coastal underwater structures, probably in the harbours around Baiae before the end of the 2nd century BC.[13] The harbour of Caesarea is an example (22-15 BC) of the use of underwater Roman concrete technology on a large scale,[11] for which enormous quantities of pozzolana were imported from Puteoli.[14]

For rebuilding Rome after the fire in 64 AD which destroyed large portions of the city, Nero's new building code largely called for brick-faced concrete. This appears to have encouraged the development of the brick and concrete industries.[11]

Example of opus caementicium on a tomb on the ancient Appian Way in Rome. The original covering has been removed.
Example of opus caementicium on a tomb on the ancient Appian Way in Rome. The original covering has been removed.

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Baiae

Baiae

Baiae was an ancient Roman town situated on the northwest shore of the Gulf of Naples and now in the comune of Bacoli. It was a fashionable resort for centuries in antiquity, particularly towards the end of the Roman Republic, when it was reckoned as superior to Capri, Pompeii, and Herculaneum by wealthy Romans, who built villas here from 100 BC to AD 500. It was notorious for its hedonistic offerings and the attendant rumours of corruption and scandal.

Frigidarium

Frigidarium

A frigidarium is one of the three main bath chambers of a Roman bath or thermae, namely the cold room. It often contains a swimming pool.

History of Roman and Byzantine domes

History of Roman and Byzantine domes

Domes were a characteristic element of the architecture of Ancient Rome and of its medieval continuation, the Byzantine Empire. They had widespread influence on contemporary and later styles, from Russian and Ottoman architecture to the Italian Renaissance and modern revivals. The domes were customarily hemispherical, although octagonal and segmented shapes are also known, and they developed in form, use, and structure over the centuries. Early examples rested directly on the rotunda walls of round rooms and featured a central oculus for ventilation and light. Pendentives became common in the Byzantine period, provided support for domes over square spaces.

Pantheon, Rome

Pantheon, Rome

The Pantheon is a former Roman temple and, since 609 AD, a Catholic church in Rome, Italy, on the site of an earlier temple commissioned by Marcus Agrippa during the reign of Augustus. It was rebuilt by the emperor Hadrian and probably dedicated c. 126 AD. Its date of construction is uncertain, because Hadrian chose not to inscribe the new temple but rather to retain the inscription of Agrippa's older temple, which had burned down.

De architectura

De architectura

De architectura is a treatise on architecture written by the Roman architect and military engineer Marcus Vitruvius Pollio and dedicated to his patron, the emperor Caesar Augustus, as a guide for building projects. As the only treatise on architecture to survive from antiquity, it has been regarded since the Renaissance as the first book on architectural theory, as well as a major source on the canon of classical architecture. It contains a variety of information on Greek and Roman buildings, as well as prescriptions for the planning and design of military camps, cities, and structures both large and small. Since Vitruvius published before the development of cross vaulting, domes, concrete, and other innovations associated with Imperial Roman architecture, his ten books give no information on these hallmarks of Roman building design and technology.

Lime mortar

Lime mortar

Lime mortar or torching is composed of lime and an aggregate such as sand, mixed with water. The ancient Egyptians were the first to use lime mortars, which they used to plaster their temples. In addition, the Egyptians also incorporated various limes into their religious temples as well as their homes. Indian traditional structures built with lime mortar, which are more than 4,000 years old like Mohenjo-daro is still a heritage monument of Indus valley civilization in Pakistan. It is one of the oldest known types of mortar also used in ancient Rome and Greece, when it largely replaced the clay and gypsum mortars common to ancient Egyptian construction.

Pozzolana

Pozzolana

Pozzolana or pozzuolana, also known as pozzolanic ash, is a natural siliceous or siliceous-aluminous material which reacts with calcium hydroxide in the presence of water at room temperature. In this reaction insoluble calcium silicate hydrate and calcium aluminate hydrate compounds are formed possessing cementitious properties. The designation pozzolana is derived from one of the primary deposits of volcanic ash used by the Romans in Italy, at Pozzuoli. The modern definition of pozzolana encompasses any volcanic material, predominantly composed of fine volcanic glass, that is used as a pozzolan. Note the difference with the term pozzolan, which exerts no bearing on the specific origin of the material, as opposed to pozzolana, which can only be used for pozzolans of volcanic origin, primarily composed of volcanic glass.

Pozzuoli

Pozzuoli

Pozzuoli is a city and comune of the Metropolitan City of Naples, in the Italian region of Campania. It is the main city of the Phlegrean Peninsula.

Caesarea Maritima

Caesarea Maritima

Caesarea, also known as Caesarea Maritima or Caesarea Palestinae, in medieval and early modern times known as Qisarya, and in modern Israel as Keisaria, was an ancient and medieval city in the Sharon plain on the coast of the Eastern Mediterranean, and later a small fishing village. For centuries it was a major intellectual hub of the Mediterranean and cultural capital of Palestine. Today the site is included in an Israeli national park.

Great Fire of Rome

Great Fire of Rome

The Great Fire of Rome occurred in July AD 64. The fire began in the merchant shops around Rome's chariot stadium, Circus Maximus, on the night of 19 July. After six days, the fire was brought under control, but before the damage could be assessed, the fire reignited and burned for another three days. In the aftermath of the fire, two thirds of Rome had been destroyed.

Nero

Nero

Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, was the fifth Roman emperor and final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 until his death in AD 68. He was adopted by the Roman emperor Claudius at the age of 13 and succeeded him on the throne. Nero was popular with the members of his Praetorian Guard and lower-class commoners in Rome and its provinces, but he was deeply resented by the Roman aristocracy. Most contemporary sources describe him as tyrannical, self-indulgent, and debauched. After being declared a public enemy by the Roman Senate, he committed suicide at age 30.

Appian Way

Appian Way

The Appian Way is one of the earliest and strategically most important Roman roads of the ancient republic. It connected Rome to Brindisi, in southeast Italy. Its importance is indicated by its common name, recorded by Statius, of Appia longarum... regina viarum.

Material properties

Roman concrete, like any concrete, consists of an aggregate and hydraulic mortar, a binder mixed with water that hardens over time. The composition of the aggregate varied, and included pieces of rock, ceramic tile, lime clasts, and brick rubble from the remains of previously demolished buildings. In Rome, readily available tuff was often used as an aggregate.[15]

Gypsum and quicklime were used as binders.[3] Volcanic dusts, called pozzolana or "pit sand", were favoured where they could be obtained. Pozzolana makes the concrete more resistant to salt water than modern-day concrete.[16] Pozzolanic mortar had a high content of alumina and silica.

Recent research (2023) found that lime clasts, previously considered a sign of poor aggregation technique, react with water seeping into any cracks. This produces reactive calcium, which allows new calcium carbonate crystals to form and reseal the cracks.[17] These lime clasts have a brittle structure that was most likely created in a "hot-mixing" technique with quicklime rather than traditional slaked lime, causing cracks to preferentially move through the lime clasts, thus potentially playing a critical role in the self-healing mechanism.[18]

Concrete, and in particular, the hydraulic mortar responsible for its cohesion, was a type of structural ceramic whose utility derived largely from its rheological plasticity in the paste state. The setting and hardening of hydraulic cements derived from hydration of materials and the subsequent chemical and physical interaction of these hydration products. This differed from the setting of slaked lime mortars, the most common cements of the pre-Roman world. Once set, Roman concrete exhibited little plasticity, although it retained some resistance to tensile stresses.

Crystal structure of tobermorite: elementary unit cell
Crystal structure of tobermorite: elementary unit cell

The setting of pozzolanic cements has much in common with setting of their modern counterpart, Portland cement. The high silica composition of Roman pozzolana cements is very close to that of modern cement to which blast furnace slag, fly ash, or silica fume have been added.

The strength and longevity of Roman 'marine' concrete is understood to benefit from a reaction of seawater with a mixture of volcanic ash and quicklime to create a rare crystal called tobermorite, which may resist fracturing. As seawater percolated within the tiny cracks in the Roman concrete, it reacted with phillipsite naturally found in the volcanic rock and created aluminous tobermorite crystals. The result is a candidate for "the most durable building material in human history". In contrast, modern concrete exposed to saltwater deteriorates within decades.[19][20][21]

The Roman concrete at the Tomb of Caecilia Metella is another variation higher in potassium that triggered changes that "reinforce interfacial zones and potentially contribute to improved mechanical performance".[22]

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Concrete

Concrete

Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most widely used building material. Its usage worldwide, ton for ton, is twice that of steel, wood, plastics, and aluminium combined. Globally, the ready-mix concrete industry, the largest segment of the concrete market, is projected to exceed $600 billion in revenue by 2025. This widespread use results in a number of environmental impacts. Most notably, the production process for cement produces large volumes of greenhouse gas emissions, leading to net 8% of global emissions. Other environmental concerns include widespread illegal sand mining, impacts on the surrounding environment such as increased surface runoff or urban heat island effect, and potential public health implications from toxic ingredients. Significant research and development is being done to try to reduce the emissions or make concrete a source of carbon sequestration, and increase recycled and secondary raw materials content into the mix to achieve a circular economy. Concrete is expected to be a key material for structures resilient to climate disasters, as well as a solution to mitigate the pollution of other industries, capturing wastes such as coal fly ash or bauxite tailings and residue.

Construction aggregate

Construction aggregate

Construction aggregate, or simply aggregate, is a broad category of coarse- to medium-grained particulate material used in construction, including sand, gravel, crushed stone, slag, recycled concrete and geosynthetic aggregates. Aggregates are the most mined materials in the world. Aggregates are a component of composite materials such as concrete and asphalt; the aggregate serves as reinforcement to add strength to the overall composite material. Due to the relatively high hydraulic conductivity value as compared to most soils, aggregates are widely used in drainage applications such as foundation and French drains, septic drain fields, retaining wall drains, and roadside edge drains. Aggregates are also used as base material under foundations, roads, and railroads. In other words, aggregates are used as a stable foundation or road/rail base with predictable, uniform properties, or as a low-cost extender that binds with more expensive cement or asphalt to form concrete. Although most kinds of aggregate require a form of binding agent, there are types of self-binding aggregate which do not require any form of binding agent.

Mortar (masonry)

Mortar (masonry)

Mortar is a workable paste which hardens to bind building blocks such as stones, bricks, and concrete masonry units, to fill and seal the irregular gaps between them, spread the weight of them evenly, and sometimes to add decorative colors or patterns to masonry walls. In its broadest sense, mortar includes pitch, asphalt, and soft mud or clay, as those used between mud bricks, as well as cement mortar. The word "mortar" comes from Old French mortier, "builder's mortar, plaster; bowl for mixing." (13c.).

Ceramic

Ceramic

A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain, and brick.

Gypsum

Gypsum

Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula CaSO4·2H2O. It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard or sidewalk chalk, and drywall. Alabaster, a fine-grained white or lightly tinted variety of gypsum, has been used for sculpture by many cultures including Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Ancient Rome, the Byzantine Empire, and the Nottingham alabasters of Medieval England. Gypsum also crystallizes as translucent crystals of selenite. It forms as an evaporite mineral and as a hydration product of anhydrite.

Calcium oxide

Calcium oxide

Calcium oxide (CaO), commonly known as quicklime or burnt lime, is a widely used chemical compound. It is a white, caustic, alkaline, crystalline solid at room temperature. The broadly used term "lime" connotes calcium-containing inorganic materials, in which carbonates, oxides and hydroxides of calcium, silicon, magnesium, aluminium, and iron predominate. By contrast, quicklime specifically applies to the single chemical compound calcium oxide. Calcium oxide that survives processing without reacting in building products such as cement is called free lime.

Pozzolana

Pozzolana

Pozzolana or pozzuolana, also known as pozzolanic ash, is a natural siliceous or siliceous-aluminous material which reacts with calcium hydroxide in the presence of water at room temperature. In this reaction insoluble calcium silicate hydrate and calcium aluminate hydrate compounds are formed possessing cementitious properties. The designation pozzolana is derived from one of the primary deposits of volcanic ash used by the Romans in Italy, at Pozzuoli. The modern definition of pozzolana encompasses any volcanic material, predominantly composed of fine volcanic glass, that is used as a pozzolan. Note the difference with the term pozzolan, which exerts no bearing on the specific origin of the material, as opposed to pozzolana, which can only be used for pozzolans of volcanic origin, primarily composed of volcanic glass.

Rheology

Rheology

Rheology is the study of the flow of matter, primarily in a fluid state, but also as "soft solids" or solids under conditions in which they respond with plastic flow rather than deforming elastically in response to an applied force. Rheology is a branch of physics, and it is the science that deals with the deformation and flow of materials, both solids and liquids.

Lime mortar

Lime mortar

Lime mortar or torching is composed of lime and an aggregate such as sand, mixed with water. The ancient Egyptians were the first to use lime mortars, which they used to plaster their temples. In addition, the Egyptians also incorporated various limes into their religious temples as well as their homes. Indian traditional structures built with lime mortar, which are more than 4,000 years old like Mohenjo-daro is still a heritage monument of Indus valley civilization in Pakistan. It is one of the oldest known types of mortar also used in ancient Rome and Greece, when it largely replaced the clay and gypsum mortars common to ancient Egyptian construction.

Geopolymer

Geopolymer

Geopolymers are inorganic, typically ceramic, alumino-silicate forming long-range, covalently bonded, non-crystalline (amorphous) networks. Obsidian fragments are a component of some geopolymer blends. Commercially produced geopolymers may be used for fire- and heat-resistant coatings and adhesives, medicinal applications, high-temperature ceramics, new binders for fire-resistant fiber composites, toxic and radioactive waste encapsulation and new cements for concrete. The properties and uses of geopolymers are being explored in many scientific and industrial disciplines: modern inorganic chemistry, physical chemistry, colloid chemistry, mineralogy, geology, and in other types of engineering process technologies. The field of geopolymers is a part of polymer science, chemistry and technology that forms one of the major areas of materials science.

Portland cement

Portland cement

Portland cement is the most common type of cement in general use around the world as a basic ingredient of concrete, mortar, stucco, and non-specialty grout. It was developed from other types of hydraulic lime in England in the early 19th century by Joseph Aspdin, and is usually made from limestone. It is a fine powder, produced by heating limestone and clay minerals in a kiln to form clinker, grinding the clinker, and adding 2 to 3 percent of gypsum. Several types of Portland cement are available. The most common, called ordinary Portland cement (OPC), is grey, but white Portland cement is also available. Its name is derived from its resemblance to Portland stone which was quarried on the Isle of Portland in Dorset, England. It was named by Joseph Aspdin who obtained a patent for it in 1824. His son William Aspdin is regarded as the inventor of "modern" Portland cement due to his developments in the 1840s.

Fly ash

Fly ash

Fly ash, flue ash, coal ash, or pulverised fuel ash – plurale tantum: coal combustion residuals (CCRs) – is a coal combustion product that is composed of the particulates that are driven out of coal-fired boilers together with the flue gases. Ash that falls to the bottom of the boiler's combustion chamber is called bottom ash. In modern coal-fired power plants, fly ash is generally captured by electrostatic precipitators or other particle filtration equipment before the flue gases reach the chimneys. Together with bottom ash removed from the bottom of the boiler, it is known as coal ash.

Seismic technology

Another view of the Pantheon in Rome, including the concrete dome
Another view of the Pantheon in Rome, including the concrete dome

For an environment as prone to earthquakes as the Italian peninsula, interruptions and internal constructions within walls and domes created discontinuities in the concrete mass. Portions of the building could then shift slightly when there was movement of the earth to accommodate such stresses, enhancing the overall strength of the structure. It was in this sense that bricks and concrete were flexible. It may have been precisely for this reason that, although many buildings sustained serious cracking from a variety of causes, they continue to stand to this day.[23][11]

Another technology used to improve the strength and stability of concrete was its gradation in domes. One example is the Pantheon, where the aggregate of the upper dome region consists of alternating layers of light tuff and pumice, giving the concrete a density of 1,350 kilograms per cubic metre (84 lb/cu ft). The foundation of the structure used travertine as an aggregate, having a much higher density of 2,200 kilograms per cubic metre (140 lb/cu ft).[24][11]

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Earthquake

Earthquake

An earthquake is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those that are so weak that they cannot be felt, to those violent enough to propel objects and people into the air, damage critical infrastructure, and wreak destruction across entire cities. The seismic activity of an area is the frequency, type, and size of earthquakes experienced over a particular time. The seismicity at a particular location in the Earth is the average rate of seismic energy release per unit volume. The word tremor is also used for non-earthquake seismic rumbling.

Strength of materials

Strength of materials

The field of strength of materials typically refers to various methods of calculating the stresses and strains in structural members, such as beams, columns, and shafts. The methods employed to predict the response of a structure under loading and its susceptibility to various failure modes takes into account the properties of the materials such as its yield strength, ultimate strength, Young's modulus, and Poisson's ratio. In addition, the mechanical element's macroscopic properties such as its length, width, thickness, boundary constraints and abrupt changes in geometry such as holes are considered.

Pantheon, Rome

Pantheon, Rome

The Pantheon is a former Roman temple and, since 609 AD, a Catholic church in Rome, Italy, on the site of an earlier temple commissioned by Marcus Agrippa during the reign of Augustus. It was rebuilt by the emperor Hadrian and probably dedicated c. 126 AD. Its date of construction is uncertain, because Hadrian chose not to inscribe the new temple but rather to retain the inscription of Agrippa's older temple, which had burned down.

Tuff

Tuff

Tuff is a type of rock made of volcanic ash ejected from a vent during a volcanic eruption. Following ejection and deposition, the ash is lithified into a solid rock. Rock that contains greater than 75% ash is considered tuff, while rock containing 25% to 75% ash is described as tuffaceous. Tuff composed of sandy volcanic material can be referred to as volcanic sandstone.

Pumice

Pumice

Pumice, called pumicite in its powdered or dust form, is a volcanic rock that consists of highly vesicular rough-textured volcanic glass, which may or may not contain crystals. It is typically light-colored. Scoria is another vesicular volcanic rock that differs from pumice in having larger vesicles, thicker vesicle walls, and being dark colored and denser.

Travertine

Travertine

Travertine is a form of terrestrial limestone deposited around mineral springs, especially hot springs. It often has a fibrous or concentric appearance and exists in white, tan, cream-colored, and even rusty varieties. It is formed by a process of rapid precipitation of calcium carbonate, often at the mouth of a hot spring or in a limestone cave. In the latter, it can form stalactites, stalagmites, and other speleothems. It is frequently used in Italy and elsewhere as a building material. Similar deposits formed from ambient-temperature water are known as tufa.

Modern use

Scientific studies of Roman concrete since 2010 have attracted both media and industry attention.[25] Because of its unusual durability, longevity and lessened environmental footprint, corporations and municipalities are starting to explore the use of Roman-style concrete in North America. This involves replacing the volcanic ash with coal fly ash that has similar properties. Proponents say that concrete made with fly ash can cost up to 60% less because it requires less cement. It also has a reduced environmental footprint due to its lower cooking temperature and much longer lifespan.[26] Usable examples of Roman concrete exposed to harsh marine environments have been found to be 2000 years old with little or no wear.[27]

In 2013, the University of California Berkeley published an article that described for the first time the mechanism by which the suprastable calcium-aluminium-silicate-hydrate compound binds the material together.[28] During its production, less carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere than any modern concrete production process.[29] Its disadvantages include the longer drying time and somewhat lower strength than modern concrete, despite its greater durability. It is no coincidence that the walls of Roman buildings are thicker than those of modern buildings. However, Roman concrete was still gaining its strength for several decades after construction had been completed, which is not the case with modern concretes.[30]

Source: "Roman concrete", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, March 27th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_concrete.

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Further Reading

Concrete

Cement

Portland cement

Calcium oxide

Mortar (masonry)

Pozzolana

Fly ash

Lime (material)

Hydraulic lime

Phillipsite

Lime plaster

Lime mortar

Pozzolan

Alkali–silica reaction

Types of concrete

Energetically modified cement
See also
  • Energetically modified cement (EMC) – Class of cements, mechanically processed to transform reactivity
  • Geopolymer – Polymeric Si–O–Al framework similar to zeolites but amorphous
  • Roman brick – Style of brick used in Ancient Roman architecture
  • Roman cement – Cement made by burning septaria, unrelated to ancient Rome
  • Pozzolanic activity – Capacity of silica-rich materials to react with calcium hydroxyde to form calcium silicate hydrates
  • Tobermorite – Inosilicate alteration mineral in metamorphosed limestone and in skarn
Literature
  • Adam, Jean-Pierre; Mathews, Anthony (2014). Roman Building. Florence: Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9780203984369.
  • Lancaster, Lynne C. (2009). Concrete Vaulted Construction in Imperial Rome: innovations in context. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521842020.
  • Lechtman, Heather; Hobbs, Linn (1986). "Roman Concrete and the Roman Architectural Revolution". In W.D. Kingery (ed.). Ceramics and Civilization. Vol. 3: High Technology Ceramics: Past, Present, Future. American Ceramics Society. ISBN 091609488X.
  • MacDonald, William Lloyd (1982). The Architecture of the Roman Empire, v.2, an Urban Appraisal. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300034561.
References
  1. ^ Chandler, David (6 January 2023). "Riddle solved: Why was Roman concrete so durable?". techxplore.com. Archived from the original on 21 January 2023. Retrieved 7 January 2023.
  2. ^ "Por esto el hormigón de los antiguos romanos era tan fuerte (y aún hoy podemos aprender de él)" [This is why the concrete of the ancient Romans was so strong (and we can still learn from it today)]. Infoterio Noticias | Ciencia y Tecnología (in Spanish). 2023-01-09. Retrieved 2023-01-24.
  3. ^ a b "National Pozzolan Association: The History of Natural Pozzolans". pozzolan.org. Retrieved 2021-02-21.
  4. ^ Boëthius, Axel; Ling, Roger; Rasmussen, Tom (1978). "Etruscan and Early Roman Architecture". Yale/Pelican history of art. Yale University Press. pp. 128–129. ISBN 978-0300052909.
  5. ^ "Aqua Clopedia, a picture dictionary on Roman aqueducts: Roman concrete / opus caementicium". romanaqueducts.info. Retrieved 2023-01-24.
  6. ^ Moore, David (February 1993). "The Riddle of Ancient Roman Concrete". S Dept. of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, Upper Colorado Region. Retrieved 20 May 2013.
  7. ^ Henig, Martin, ed. (1983). A Handbook of Roman Art. Phaidon. p. 30. ISBN 0714822140.
  8. ^ "Baiae, historic site, Italy". Encyclopedia Britannica.
  9. ^ Lancaster 2009, p. 40.
  10. ^ Mark, Robert; Hutchinson, Paul (March 1986). "On the Structure of the Roman Pantheon". The Art Bulletin. New York, NY: College Art Association. 68 (1): 24. doi:10.2307/3050861. JSTOR 3050861.
  11. ^ a b c d e Lechtman & Hobbs 1986.
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