Showing posts with label Volcanic Ash. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Volcanic Ash. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 5

Why Roman Concrete Lasts

Outside of the Pantheon in Rome. (Mariordo/Wikimedia Commons/CC-SA-4.0)

The ancient Romans were masters of building and engineering, perhaps most famously represented by the aqueducts. And those still functional marvels rely on a unique construction material: pozzolanic concrete, a spectacularly durable concrete that gave Roman structures their incredible strength.

Even today, one of their structures – the Pantheon, still intact and nearly 2,000 years old – holds the record for the world's largest dome of unreinforced concrete.

The properties of this concrete have generally been attributed to its ingredients: pozzolana, a mix of volcanic ash – named after the Italian city of Pozzuoli, where a significant deposit of it can be found – and lime. When mixed with water, the two materials can react to produce strong concrete.      READ MORE...