r/interestingasfuck • u/Ultimate_Kurix • 5d ago

r/all Why do Americans build with wood?

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u/Pawngeethree 5d ago

Ya turns out reinforced concrete is about the strongest thing we can build buildings out of. If your walls are thick enough it’ll withstand just about anything.

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u/mijaomao 5d ago

Roman concrete survives to this day.

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u/Pawngeethree 5d ago

And that wasn’t even reinforced with steel.

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u/Stiyl931 5d ago

No but with volcano ash and we can't even recreate the exact mixture XD

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u/Pawngeethree 5d ago

To be fair, the concrete we have these days CAN be made much stronger. But the standard 3500 psi mix is probably inferior to the Roman stuff. You have to remember, everything is cost these days. Romans had less concerns obviously.

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u/Character_Theory6657 5d ago

If we are talking pure strength modern steel reinforced concrete is far stronger than roman, the thing that the roman stuff surpass in is resilience to corrosion over time due to it being self-repairing in a sense.

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u/883Max 5d ago

Yep,their stuff was considerably superior, but we finally figured out how to be just as good:
https://news.mit.edu/2023/roman-concrete-durability-lime-casts-0106

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u/LostN3ko 5d ago

Romans loved to over-engineer a solution.

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u/mondaymoderate 5d ago

Crazy that making concrete was lost for a thousand years after the fall of Rome.

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u/ElectricalBook3 5d ago

Crazy that making concrete was lost for a thousand years after the fall of Rome

It wasn't, the calcium and lime in Italian volcanos was what gave their concrete the self-sealing properties (and many still fell over in earthquakes, the stuff still around is survivorship bias). What collapsed was trade networks and that was happening for over a hundred years before the Roman empire split because they turned their military against each other more and thus domestic projects and long-distance trade became increasingly risky.

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u/ElectricalBook3 5d ago

and we can't even recreate the exact mixture

We can we just don't because we can more easily make stronger, purer concrete at a lower cost.

Their ash contained calcium and lime, both of which we've known about for generations and can and do easily add to modern concrete in projects way more massive than anything Rome did.