Concrete ships have been around since the 1800s. But there is one boat with a concrete hull that is still afloat in a Florida sound. Watch the video to learn more about the colorful history of “The Boat”—which seems to have more lives than a cat!
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Researchers have developed a type of permeable concrete that solves two problems: flooding from water pooling during heavy rains and recycling of an industrial waste product that previously had no reuse applications.
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Did you miss the Olympics this year? Today’s video features an annual concrete toboggan race, in which engineering students from across Canada (and sometimes beyond) compete to build a 350-lb. toboggan with concrete runners.
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Despite its material strength, concrete’s weakness is its huge carbon footprint. New methods are emerging to process wood into a high-performance structural building material that could someday take concrete’s place in buildings and beyond.
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Researchers have created a high-performance ceramic composite that is strong, durable, and resistant to heat and radiation. The findings could be useful in industries that require highly functional and durable ceramic materials—such as nuclear power plants, aerospace, and oil and gas industries.
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Using a fungus called Trichoderma reesei, researchers at Binghamton University in New York are developing a self-healing concrete formulation that incorporates fungal spores that remain dormant until a crack forms.
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Solidia Technologies is founded on the concept of using eco-friendly processing techniques to drastically lower the carbon footprint of concrete—watch this video to see how the company makes its carbon-dioxide-absorbing concrete blocks.
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The January/February 2018 issue of the ACerS Bulletin—featuring articles about new facets for defects in ceramics, innovative new concretes, the NSF CAREER Class of 2017, and much more—is now available online.
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Researchers at the University of Konstanz in Germany have shown that they can engineer stronger cement by giving the material a nano-level brick and mortar structure. Adding polymer binders into cement to control its nanostructure, the researchers developed a material 40–100 times more fracture resistant than standard concrete.
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A team of MIT students have come up with a way to incorporate irradiated plastic into cement paste to make concrete that is nearly 15% stronger than what’s available today. This could reduce the amount of plastic in landfills and lower concrete’s carbon footprint.
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