The word concrete comes from the Latin word ' concretus' (meaning compact or condensed), the perfect passive participle of ' concrescere', from ' con-' (together) and ' crescere' (to grow).Ĭoncrete floors were found in the royal palace of Tiryns, Greece, which dates roughly to 1400-1200 BC. Some methods of concrete manufacture and repair involve pumping grout into the gaps to make up a solid mass in situ. It does not contain coarse aggregates and is usually either pourable or thixotropic, and is used to fill gaps between masonry components or coarse aggregate which has already been put in place. Grout is another material associated with concrete and cement. Whereas concrete is itself a building material, mortar is a bonding agent that typically holds bricks, tiles and other masonry units together. Many other non-cementitious types of concrete exist with other methods of binding aggregate together, including asphalt concrete with a bitumen binder, which is frequently used for road surfaces, and polymer concretes that use polymers as a binder.

In the past, lime based cement binders, such as lime putty, were often used but sometimes with other hydraulic cements, (water resistant) such as a calcium aluminate cement or with Portland cement to form Portland cement concrete (named for its visual resemblance to Portland stone). Most concrete is poured with reinforcing materials (such as steel rebar) embedded to provide tensile strength, yielding reinforced concrete. Often, additives (such as pozzolans or superplasticizers) are included in the mixture to improve the physical properties of the wet mix, delay or accelerate the curing time, or otherwise change the finished material. The hydration process is exothermic, which means ambient temperature plays a significant role in how long it takes concrete to set. This time allows concrete to not only be cast in forms, but also to have a variety of tooled processes performed. The cement reacts with the water through a process called concrete hydration that hardens it over several hours to form a hard matrix that binds the materials together into a durable stone-like material that has many uses. When aggregate is mixed with dry Portland cement and water, the mixture forms a fluid slurry that is easily poured and molded into shape. Its usage worldwide, ton for ton, is twice that of steel, wood, plastics, and aluminium combined. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most widely used building material. JSTOR ( July 2022) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)Ī single concrete block, as used for constructionĬoncrete is a composite material composed of aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement that cures over time.Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. This article needs additional citations for verification.

Large concrete blocks