stevendkaplan
Has there been any attempt to add graphene to hempcrete?
Devadas Menon
FWG Ltd UK (Kent) had demonstrated this a few years ago including graphene strengthened plastic. FWG also has developed a unique way to create graphene from easily available materials.
Poco Loco
This article is light on for details. Yes this new addtive increases strength of concrete by 30% and adds water proofing but are costs reduced? In most cases increase strenght is not required. So does it allow us to reducing the amount of cement and still maintain the required strenght and reduce costs? In the 70s concrete was specified by strength. The concrete supply companies reduced the quantity of cement in the mix and introduced an additive to the concrete mix to maintain its strength. Cement is a pacifier in the mix and helps protect the steel reinforcement from corrosion as well as being a strength component. Reduction of in cement in the mix resulted in the steel reinforcing corroding and the term concrete cancer is commonly used to describe this effect. Subsequently concrete was then specified by the minimum amount of cement as well as strenght to redress matters. So the article needs to flesh out how this new additive is beneficial.
1. Does it reduce costs?
2. Is the cement quantity reduced and if so how is the loss in passiving effect of reduced cement countered?
3. What other specific benifits does this now additive bring apart from waterproofing and how effective is the waterproofing. Please expand.
4. Does it reduce the curing time of concrete to aid construction.
Poco Loco
Further to my previous comment, I see that there was a link that answered some of my queries. There was a comment that this additive may allow slabs to be reduced from 4 inches to 2 inches. Engineering design is not just about strength. It has to provide stiffness too which determines the depth of a structural element. If you construct a 2 inch sudpended slab it may be so flexible that people would feel unsafe walking on it. What would dramatically change engineering would be if the additive could improve the tensile strenght of concrete sufficently to be used without the need of steel reinforcement.
paul314
Have they got instrumentation embedded in the new concrete? Or will they just be looking in now and then to see if it fails?
piperTom
It is said to be "30% stronger" than unenhanced concrete. But there are many aspects to "strength". Are we measuring compressive, tensile, shear, twisting strength? The one number given doesn't help evaluate the product. What's the prospect for long term resistance to cracking, the bane of all concrete planning?
SibylTheHeretic
Doesn't the strength of concrete increase with any added fiber? What about adding the fluff from ground up fiberglass, like old turbine blades? Surely that would be cheaper and also recycle something that at present cannot be recycled.
jerryd
Sorry but doesn't pass the smell test. Now FG fibers would really increase strength.
Ray6969
Has there ever been any studies done on the effects of long term exposure to graphene?
paleochocolate
sounds redundant