Building Industry Magazine - August 2014 - (Page 42)

CONCRETE MOVES FORWARD Environmentally sound, malleable and even design-edgy, concrete bridges old school with 21st-century cool BY JACKIE M. YOUNG C oncrete is often thought to be a dull and gray subject, same as its typical coloring. Not surprising, perhaps, considering that the average consumer's knowledge of concrete probably begins and ends with the cliché parking structure pillar. Not only is concrete more versatile and vibrant than ever, today it's the "new cool" when it comes to modern interior design. "Concrete is amazing," says Timothy Folks, technical services manager at Hawaiian Cement. "You have this fluid mass that you can place and shape into almost anything. Then it hardens into a strong, solid, durable mass. It's liquid, pourable rock. No wonder it's the most widely used construction material worldwide." discovered hydraulic lime (cement that hardens underwater), and by 700 B.C. were using kilns to produce mortar for houses, floors and underground cisterns. By 3,000 B.C. Egyptians were using gypsum and lime mortars to build the pyramids-and by 300 B.C. Romans were using a volcanic ash called pozzolana, found near Pozzuoli in Naples, as hydraulic lime. Ancient admixtures at that time, however, were less appealing: They were made from animal fat, milk and blood. Tracing Concrete's Foundations Natural deposits of cement compounds (the binding material for concrete) created by spontaneous reactions between limestone and oil shale have been found in Israel and date back approximately 12 million years. More than 8,000 years ago, Bedouins in southern Syria and northern Jordan began building concrete-like structures. They later 42 | BUILDING INDUSTRY HAWAII | AUGUST 2014 Concrete slab at Hawaiian Cement's Campbell Industrial Park plant PHOTO: TIMOTHY S. FOLKS It wasn't until 1793 that John Smeaton, a British engineer, discovered a more modern method for producing hydraulic lime for cement. He used limestone that contained clay and fired it until it turned into "clinker," a hard compound of minerals, then ground it into a cement powder. In 1824, English mason Joseph Aspdin invented Portland cement (so-named because it resembled stone on the British Island of Portland) by carefully proportioning limestone and clay, burning

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Building Industry Magazine - August 2014

THE BIG ISLAND: KEEPING THE FAITH
INSIDE THE HICA
GET READY FOR WORK
CONCRETE MOVES FORWARD
INTERVIEW WITH KAREN NAKAMURA
NEWS BEAT
Datebook
Contracts Awarded
Low Bids
Company Profile: HPM Building Supply
Faces: ABC Hawaii Celebration
News Makers
New Products
Faces: Red, White and Blue
Faces: Hawaii Power

Building Industry Magazine - August 2014