Regular concrete tends to deteriorate with time. Basically, water goes into the pores of concrete the water expands when it freezes and it breaks the concrete apart. Over time this becomes a very expensive problem to fix. Ultra-High Performance Concrete is a new class of concrete that has super performance. It has very high strength, maybe six to seven times the strength of regular concrete. Regular concrete will have a strength of about four thousand pounds per square inch, that’s maybe two cars. However, Ultra-High Performance Concrete can support at least twenty two thousand pounds per square inch.
We have reached strength as high as thirty six thousand pounds per square inch in our lab. My sincere hope is that entire bridges and entire infrastructure are made of it. We took the gravel out and we put in just different kinds of sand, the different types of fibers that are available too and we optimized the mixes in such a way that it packs together very densely. Because of that, water has trouble getting in.
We’re going into finer and finer materials that are easier to mix. It’s very important for improving workability for the people that cast concrete on site. You have to do a few tests in between make sure that it’s getting enough spread so it’s workable enough and then you measure its diameter to ensure the workability of the concrete. Our work and what differentiates us from what is commercially available is that we produce a non-proprietary version.
You can open up any of my papers, look at the formula look at how it’s done and make it. You can make it in India, you can make it in China, you can make it anywhere you want. It’s about 80% cheaper than the regular material that you can buy on the market and it gives pretty much the same performance. The very high strength, I think, also makes it suitable for use in super tall buildings.
Buildings that are in the mile plus range. I believe having a material with the super durability will change the way that we are building our infrastructure.
