Construction & Materials Codexery

Concrete

Second-most-used substance after water; most-manufactured material worldwide.

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The word concrete comes from the Latin "concretus," meaning compact or condensed.[1] Aggregate bound by cement that solidifies via hydration forms the composite material concrete.[2][3] After water, concrete is the substance used second-most frequently and stands as the globe's predominant construction material.[2]

Quick Facts

Field
Building material
Known for
Most widely used building material; second-most-used substance after water
Composition
Aggregate bound with cement (typically Portland cement) that hardens via hydration
Modern innovation
Reinforced concrete with steel rebar for tensile strength

Facts from the source article.

Key facts and history

Concrete floors existed in the royal palace of Tiryns, Greece, dating to roughly 1400–1200 BC.[4] The Nabatean traders built kilns for hydraulic lime mortar by 700 BC and constructed underground waterproof cisterns.[5][6] The Romans used concrete extensively from 300 BC to AD 476, making structures like the Colosseum and the Pantheon's unreinforced concrete dome.[7][8][9] Roman concrete contained quicklime, pozzolana, and pumice aggregate, and its durability came from pyroclastic materials that formed strätlingite and Al-tobermorite crystals.[7][10]

Medieval hydraulic mortars reappeared using crushed ceramics or volcanic soils as pozzolans.[11] John Smeaton's Eddystone Lighthouse (1756–1759) pioneered hydraulic lime in concrete.[12] Joseph Aspdin patented Portland cement in 1824, and reinforced concrete was invented by Joseph Monier in 1849.[13][14] On 2 October 1928, Eugène Freyssinet was granted a patent for the technique of prestressed concrete.[15]

What the research sources say

The "Scientific Principles" page from Illinois notes that water is the key ingredient that forms a paste binding the aggregate, and that the water-to-cement ratio is the most critical factor for perfect concrete.[16] That page also states that concrete can be molded into almost any desired shape and that hydration reactions may continue for many years.[16] The same source reports that the Pantheon, finished in 125 AD, contains the biggest un-reinforced concrete dome ever constructed.[6]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Concrete" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "concretus", Latin Lookup (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Concrete" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Gagg, "Cement and concrete as an engineering material: An historic appraisal and case study analysis", Engineering Failure Analysis, May 2014, p. 114–140; Crow, "The concrete conundrum", Chemistry World, March 2008, p. 62–66; "Cement Statistics and Information", usgs.gov (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Concrete" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Scientific Principles", matse1.matse.illinois.edu; Li, "Advanced Concrete Technology", June 2026 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Concrete" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Tiryns: The Prehistoric Palace of the Kings of Tiryns, the Results of the Latest Excavations", Charles Scribner's Sons, 1885, p. 190, 203–204, 215; Sparavigna, "Ancient concrete works", 2011; Jacobsen, "Sennacherib's Aqueduct at Jerwan", University of Chicago Press, June 2026; Marusin, "Ancient Concrete Structures", Concrete International, 1 January 1996, p. 56–58 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Concrete" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Gromicko, "The History of Concrete", International Association of Certified Home Inspectors, Inc., 2016; Gromicko, "The History of Concrete", International Association of Certified Home Inspectors, Inc., 2016 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Gromicko, "The History of Concrete", International Association of Certified Home Inspectors, Inc., 2016. facts only, no text reused. nachi.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Concrete" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The History of Concrete", Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Chiu, "An Introduction to the History of Project Management: From the Earliest Times to A.D. 1900", Eburon Uitgeverij B.V., 2010, p. 50 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Concrete" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Lancaster, "Concrete Vaulted Construction in Imperial Rome. Innovations in Context", Cambridge University Press, 2005 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "Concrete" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Moore, "The Pantheon", romanconcrete.com, 1999 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  10. Wikipedia, "Concrete" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Kwan, "29 Si and 27 Al MASNMR Study of Stratlingite", Journal of the American Ceramic Society, July 1995, p. 1921–1926; Jackson, "Mechanical resilience and cementitious processes in Imperial Roman architectural mortar", PNAS, 30 December 2014, p. 18484–18489; Jackson, "Phillipsite and Al-tobermorite mineral cements produced through low-temperature water-rock reactions in Roman marine concrete", American Mineralogist, July 2017, p. 1435–1450; Knapton, "Secret of how Roman concrete survived tidal battering for 2,000 years revealed", The Telegrap en.wikipedia.org
  11. Wikipedia, "Concrete" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Elsen, "Historic Mortars", 2012, p. 125–139 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  12. Wikipedia, "Concrete" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Gromicko, "the History of Concrete", The International Association of Certified Home Inspectors (InterNACHI) (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  13. Wikipedia, "Concrete" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Herring, "The Secrets of Roman Concrete", Romanconcrete.com (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  14. Wikipedia, "Concrete" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The History of Concrete and Cement", ThoughtCo, 9 April 2012; "Francois Coignet – French house builder" (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  15. Wikipedia, "Concrete" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Billington, "The Tower and the Bridge", Princeton University Press, 1985 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  16. "Scientific Principles", matse1.matse.illinois.edu. facts only, no text reused. matse1.matse.illinois.edu

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Concrete (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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