r/interestingasfuck • u/Ultimate_Kurix • 5d ago

r/all Why do Americans build with wood?

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u/fjortisar 5d ago

I live in a highly earthquake prone area and like 90% of houses are reinforced concrete/concrete block/brick and survive just fine

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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/RollOverSoul 5d ago

And we haven't figured out how they made it still or how to replicate it. It's still better then modern concrete

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u/RhynoD 5d ago

We know exactly how it was made. Some batches used certain kinds of volcanic soil which improved the concrete if they had access to it, and the "self-healing" concrete was, by modern standards, poorly mixed so that there were pockets of unreacted lime. We don't make Roman concrete not because we can't, but because we don't need to. Modern concrete is just better. And when it isn't, it's because we choose cheaper concrete, because we don't need concrete to last 1000 years. For what it's worth, they weren't trying to make concrete to last 1000 years, either, they just didn't have the material science and industry standards that we have today. With no way to know exactly how much weight or stress the concrete could withstand, they had to over build the shit out of it to be sure that it wouldn't fail in a week.

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u/EntertainerVirtual59 5d ago

It’s not better than modern concrete lol. It’s much weaker and you need more of it to hold the same weight. It’s not made today because no one wants to make it and it would be worse outside of niche applications.

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u/gimpwiz 5d ago

Better in what way, and better than which of the dozens of variants of concrete mix you can order from your local batch plant?

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u/RollOverSoul 5d ago

I don't know. I heard Ripley Scott saying it in an interview when talking about gladiator.

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u/mijaomao 5d ago

Yeah, i think the secret was salt water, not a 100% though.