Concrete Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Concrete - Case Study Example Concrete remains the most essential part of our daily activity, as people need to take shelter in their homes, which are built with use of concrete. In fact, all buildings, roads, bridges that people use today are constructed with concrete. Some constructions like bridge over the Colorado River, built with strong concrete, are almost 250 yeas old. However, the changes in the manufacturing process, based on the research and developmental efforts have resulted in different types of concrete, being used presently. The use of admixtures and plasticizers to produce concrete of high strength is an example in this direction. The background of concrete goes back to the time of Egyptian pyramids, which are almost 5000 years old. Since then, many civilizations have used concrete for building and decorative purposes. The utilization of concrete is now found almost everywhere for projects involving infrastructure, building architecture and decorative construction work. Egyptian technicians used gypsum and lime that served as mortar for the bricks used for building pyramids, Bricks were made of mud and straw. This process continued for many centuries until 300 B.C. when Romans discovered the use of a material that is very near to the modern cement, as they built different architectural structures including Colossuim and Pantheon. This was during the period from 300 B.C. to 476 A. D., when the Romans also mixed animal fats in their cement that served as admixtures. Britisher named Joseph Aspdin, a stonemason discovered Portland cement in 1824. The name Portland came from the mining area, which produced the tough stone required for making such cement, which came from stones quarried on the Isle of Portland, in Great Britain. During the year 1828, Portland cement was used extensively in the construction of tunnel under Thames River Experimenting with the mixture of clay and ground limestone, Aspdin created a product that he named Hydraulic cement, as this mixture became