Construction
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Thanks to our high demand for concrete, the world may eventually run out of accessible sand. Scientists at Rice University have now shown that substituting graphene can not only save sand, but makes concrete lighter, stronger and tougher.
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China's Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group recently took its new XCA3000 wheeled crane to a wind farm in the Liaoning Province to lift a 25-ton blade some 107 meters above the ground, before it was installed in the turbine hub.
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Concrete may seem strong, but it can be surprisingly vulnerable to the elements. Now researchers at Drexel University have demonstrated a type of self-healing concrete embedded with “BioFibers” that use bacteria to patch up cracks as they form.
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To build or maintain today's colossal wind turbine towers, you either need an absolute monster of a crane – or something like this. The KoalaLifter self-climbing crane is quick, compact, handles heavy loads and creeps up turbine towers of any height.
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The extraordinary Hadrian X bricklaying robot rocks up to a building site looking like a regular truck, then extends a 32-m (105-ft) boom arm and starts precisely laying up to 300 large masonry blocks an hour. It's pretty remarkable to watch.
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MIT researchers have discovered that when you mix cement and carbon black with water, the resulting concrete self-assembles into an energy-storing supercapacitor that can put out enough juice to power a home or fast-charge electric cars.
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Looking to nature can provide inspiration, especially in construction. Researchers studied the complex internal structure of a termite mound in hopes that we can one day construct to a building that can regulate its own internal climate.
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The Exchange tower in Detroit is nearly finished, a 207-ft-tall proof-of-concept for an advanced modular construction technique. Its floors were each pre-built on the ground, then hoisted up on central spines and installed from the top down.
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These little-known machines have to rank as some of the greatest sandpit toys in history. Walking spider excavators offer an extraordinary range of capabilities through their articulating, extending legs, stabilizers, tilting wheels, and buckets.
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HP has put forward a small robot it says can dramatically speed up construction work, by autonomously printing guidelines straight from the blueprints onto the floor. Rugged, roadworthy and extremely accurate, Siteprint is a super-quick layout tool.
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Although discarded printer cartridges may be low on toner, they still do contain some toner which can't simply be reused in its present form. Instead, Canon has started recycling it into a pelletized asphalt colorant and binding agent.
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Australian researchers have analyzed the structural properties of walls made from end-of-life car tires packed with dirt, giving engineers some figures to work with and making a well-known upcycling technique available to the construction industry.
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