Scientists decided to riddle the main concrete structure

Scientists, materials scientists, finally, decided , whether frozen continuous concrete structure - such as, for example, metals or stones, - or a group of the compacted fines. This question, in spite of the long and abundant use of this building material for a long time remained unanswered. It turned out that the concrete combines the features of both structures.

The issues of the internal structure of the material has been condensed matter physics section entitled & quot; мезоскопическая Physics & quot ;. It deals with the properties of systems at a scale intermediate between the macroscopic and microscopic - that is, lying between the size of individual atoms and so on which are terminated quantum effects
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Concrete - a mixture of water, gravel, cement and sand - examined an international team of MIT, Georgetown University, the French National Center for Scientific Research and other institutions. The researchers claim that their discovery about the concrete structure will enable engineers to design more efficient materials, both in terms of strength, and in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions during production. This is very important because it is used so much in the world of concrete, that its production is one of the most important factors in greenhouse gas emissions.

It turned out that the fine particles in the concrete is distributed in such a way that several larger always have smaller. One of the authors of the study, diapers Roland [Roland Pellenq], explains that these small particles are very tightly interact with each other on the mesoscopic scale. The particles are not so small as to achieve the state of minimum energy - because of this material is subject to change and may crumble or crack over time
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Determination of the influence of pore size, located on the mesoscopic scale, the properties of the material up to this point have been conducted. Namely, since the presence of such dimensions and determine the material properties and its susceptibility to degradation. In particular, it was found that the cracking of the concrete does not occur due to the fact that the water penetrates the pores, which then freezes at low temperatures.

New computer simulation of the finished material properties allow to fine-tune the proportions of the components required to obtain better result . For example, too little water will not enough solution to fill the liquid, and too much - after its evaporation leave large voids in the finished material.

Source: geektimes.ru/post/270918/