The History of Concrete

   The history of Concrete 

   The archaeologists found that 5000 years ago the Lingjiatan ancestors were not only able to make fine jade and stone tools, but also started rice farming, raising or hunting pigs, deer, birds and other animals to enrich their diet. In addition, they already knew how to build houses, similar to reinforced concrete: "digging slots and filling them with burnt earth, wooden bones to support mud walls".

   The Lingjiatan people 5,000 years ago did not simply build houses, it has been proven that they already knew how to "dig a trench, fill a burned earth, and support a mud wall with wooden bones", which is very similar to today's reinforced concrete. The staff said that the original ancestors would have used fire-roasted earth as the filling material for the foundation slots and walls, and used wooden sticks as support posts for the walls in the slots, then filled them with red-roasted earth and applied thick clay on both sides of the walls, possibly even reinforced in part with reed sticks.

   In 1900, the Universal Exhibition demonstrated the use of reinforced concrete in many ways, causing a revolution in the field of building materials. Inspired by the flower pots, baths and water tanks made of wire mesh and concrete by Monnier, which he saw at the Paris Exhibition in 1867, the French engineer Einaric sought to apply this material to the construction of houses. in 1879 he began to manufacture reinforced concrete floor slabs, which later developed into complete buildings using concrete structural beams reinforced by steel hoops and longitudinal rods. Only a few years later, he built a flat block in Paris using the improved reinforced concrete main columns, beams and slabs that are still commonly used today.

   In 1884 the German construction company purchased Monnier's patent and carried out the first scientific experiments on reinforced concrete, studying its strength, fire resistance and ability to resist fire. The bond between steel and concrete. 1887 German engineer Kollen first published calculations for reinforced concrete; the Englishman Wilson patented reinforced concrete slabs; the American Hayter experimented with concrete beams. 1895 - 1900 The first bridges and pavements were built in France using reinforced concrete. In 1918 Abrams published his famous theory of the water-cement ratio for calculating the strength of concrete. Reinforced concrete began to become an important material in changing the landscape of this world. 

   Concrete dates back to ancient times, with the cementing materials used being clay, lime, gypsum and volcanic ash. Since the advent of Portland cement in the 1820s, it has been extremely versatile due to the strength and durability of the concrete it is formulated with for engineering purposes, as well as the easy availability of raw materials, lower cost and, above all, lower energy consumption (see Inorganic cementitious materials).

   In the early 20th century, someone published a water-cement ratio and other doctrines, initially laid the theoretical basis for the strength of concrete. Since the 1960s, a wide range of water-reducing agents, and the emergence of high-efficiency water-reducing agents and the corresponding fluid concrete; polymer materials into the field of concrete materials, the emergence of polymer concrete; a variety of fibres are used to disperse reinforcement of fibre concrete. Modern testing techniques are also increasingly being applied to the study of concrete materials science.