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Tuesday 28 April 2009

Bendy Concrete

What?!?!?! I saw this picture and I thought to myself that cant be concrete! It looks like a crappy piece of aluminum. Concrete is amazingly strong in compression but in tension it is pretty crap as it can be brittle like most other ceramics, and it heals itself!

"Its amazing properties rely on a chemical and structural mix: In the resulting solid, tiny cracks do still form when the material is bent, but they remain tiny and don't connect up to each other. The cracks stay around 60 microns in size, allowing the solid to bend, and their propagation is halted by microscopic reinforcing fibers. Furthermore, the cracks are exactly the right size to allow moisture and air in when they form. After a short while to react, "spare" dry cement in the mix reacts with the available carbon dioxide and water to form calcium carbonate--a naturally strong material that then seals up the cracks. "

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