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We Finally Know How Ancient Roman Concrete Was Able to Last Thousands of Years
(www.sciencealert.com)
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this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2024
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the iron is a great way to increase tensile strength, but decreases lifespan, rust free metals would also be much nore expensive.
Epoxy covered rebar exists as does one made from stainless steel. It's just quite pricey so it's rarely used unless absolutely necessary. Rust is generally not an issue as long as the rebar is deep inside the concrete. When it's close to the surface and gets exposed to elements is when the problems start.
Wdym? Just replace the iron rebar with gold
Gold is no where near strong enough.
Titanium would work just as well, and last quite a bit longer.
Isn't titanium too rigid for this application though? I've worked with both for a mechanical application, and titanium has no flex, so stresses get passed in to other components.
I don't know, I'm no civil engineer. Any civvies wanna fill us in?
Aluminum then?
I'd say all the Civil engineers who continue to spec steel do it for well-established reasons.
Steel is just so hard to beat in so many applications. Even for the average road bicycle, surprisingly. Because steel can tolerate more flex than things like aluminum/titanium/carbon fiber. So other materials require different designs. In the end, the average street bike in steel or aluminum can often weigh the same, depending on the design choices (not specialized bikes, where different compromises are made).
Like so many things, when used as designed in concrete, steel is just fine, and I assume meets the cost, availability, industry knowledge, etc, goals.
Makes me think of "don't remove a fence until you know why it's there". Every year upcoming engineers do tests during their education. If a different material was a better choice, I'm sure a research arm of a university would present it.
That could be. Maybe some alloy? Not sure