Roman concrete.

Did you know that until this past year we didn’t know how to make Roman concrete? For thousands of years we’ve been able to study the structures they left behind and we didn’t know how to build them. We didn’t know how they were able to stay together where our concrete structures would start to wear down in a matter of decades.

Turns out Roman concrete has high concentrations of lime within their concrete. And while that by itself is not super unique, the way that they would mix it with seawater would cause the concrete to heat up while it was curing which would seal some of the lime inside the concrete without it reacting.

So as the concrete blocks aged and weathered over the decades and centuries cracks would form water would get inside the concrete react with the lime which would reactivate the cement mixture resealing the cracks. The Romans had essentially created self-healing concrete thousands of years ago.

Now that we know this we can potentially incorporate this into our concrete structures which while significantly stronger due to our research and material science did not have the longevity of its ancient cousin.

TESRTECK