The development of cement and concrete through the ages

Today, concrete is the world’s most widely used building material. A total of over 1.5 billion tons of cement is produced annually worldwide. Concrete produced from cement exceeds10 billion tons (or 5 billion cubic yards) annually. But cement and concrete are not modern inventions – their history can be traced back at least 5,000 years!

The Ancient Egyptians first used calcinated gypsum – the forerunner of concrete – to create a smooth coating on the stone blocks used in the Pyramids. They also used lime mortars as a bonding agent for the stone blocks.

The Ancient Greeks were the first to use hydraulic mortars which can set both in the air and under water. They used these in the construction of waterproof tanks, as well as for palaces and villas.

The Romans further refined the use of hydraulic mortars and are also attributed with the invention of concrete, which they made from broken brick aggregate embedded in a mixture of lime putty with brick dust or volcanic ash. Many surviving examples of their construction work can still be seen today, over 2,000 years later. These include the Appian Way, Coliseum, Pantheon, Great Roman Baths, Basilica of Constantine, and Pont du Gard aqueduct. It has been discovered that the Roman Forum had concrete foundations of up to 12 feet in places.

Following the fall of the Roman Empire, the development of cement and the use of concrete as a construction material, stopped altogether. It was not until the 17th century that further developments of cement took place.

In 1793, the first concrete structure since the Romans was built by John Smeaton in England. He used hydraulic lime to rebuild the Eddystone Lighthouse in stone. The former building had been constructed of wood.

The first concrete bridge (unreinforced) was built in Souillac, France in 1818.

In England in 1824, Joseph Aspdin invented portland cement. He burnt ground chalk with finely divided clay in a limekiln until the carbon dioxide was driven off. The sintered product was then ground to a fine powder. He called it portland cement because, when turned into concrete, it resembled the high quality stones quarried at the Isle of Portland.

Portland cement has remained the name of common structural cements, which are mixtures of dicalcium silicate, tricalcium silicate, and tricalcium aluminate, with small amounts of magnesium and iron from limestone, clays, shale, and blast-furnace slag. Today, 98 percent of cement produced in the USA is portland cement.

In 1825, the first modern concrete produced in the USA was used in the construction of the Erie Canal, featuring cement from lime deposits in central New York.

Brunel is credited with the first engineering application of portland cement, which he used to repair a breach in the Thames Tunnel in 1828.

In 1836, the first systematic testing of the tensile and compressive strengths of concrete took place in Germany.

In 1867, Joseph Monier of France reinforced concrete flowerpots with wire, ushering in the idea of iron reinforcing bars (rebars).

The first recorded shipment of portland cement to the USA took place in 1868.

In 1886, the first rotary kilns were introduced in England, replacing the traditional vertical kilns. This facilitated the continuous production of cement.

The first reinforced concrete bridge was built in the USA in 1889.

In 1891, the first concrete street in the USA was placed in Ohio by George Bartholomew. It still exists today.

In 1902, August Perret designed and built a Paris apartment building, using reinforced concrete.

The first concrete high rise was built in 1903, in Ohio, USA.

In 1908, Thomas Edison built eleven low-cost, cast-in-place concrete houses in New Jersey, USA. They are still in use today. He also laid the first mile of concrete road.

In 1913, the first load of ready mixed concrete was delivered in Baltimore, USA. The concrete was processed at a central mixing plant and hauled to the construction site in a dump truck.

In 1914, the Panama Canal opened after decades of construction. It features three pairs of concrete locks with floors as thick as 20 feet, and walls as thick as 60 feet at the base.

The first patent application for a concrete truck mixer was made in 1916.

The earliest truck mixers, introduced in the 1920s, could only carry one cubic yard of concrete, although this gradually increased to three yards per truck. (Compare this to today’s trucks, which can carry between 10 and 12 cubic yards.)

During the 1920s, revolving drum agitator units were introduced for truck mixers. In 1927, the first horizontal drum truck mixer – the Paris Transit Mixer – was introduced.

1930 saw the introduction of air-entraining agents to improve concrete’s resistance to freeze/thaw damage, and to improve its workability. (Over 2,000 years ago, the Romans used animal blood to improve the properties of their early concrete!)

In 1930, horizontal-axis revolving-drum mixer trucks - similar to today’s concrete mixers – were introduced by three American manufacturers. Also in this year, the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association was formed in the USA.

In 1936, the first major concrete dams – Hoover Dam and Grand Coulee Dam – were built. They still exist today.

In 1967, the first concrete domed sport structure, the Assembly hall, was constructed at the University of Illinois, USA.

The use of fiber reinforcement in concrete was introduced in the USA during the 1970s. (Over 2,000 years ago, the Romans had used horsehair for such a purpose!)

The Opera House in Sydney, Australia, with its distinctive concrete peaks, opened in 1973.

In 1975, the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada - the world’s tallest concrete slip-form building – was constructed.

The use of superplasticizers as admixtures was introduced during the 1980s.

In 2006, work on the world’s tallest reinforced concrete building, Burj Dubai, began in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.