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[return to "The problem with reinforced concrete (2016)"]
1. brutus+J5[view] [source] 2021-05-25 22:00:07
>>hrl+(OP)
This should be an economics piece, not an environmental piece. The author states that "one of iron’s unalterable properties is that it rusts" yet further on acknowledges the existence of stainless steel.

There's nothing wrong with reinforced concrete, but the incentives to produce long lasting buildings are not there. The cheapest bidder will generally win and their building will last the "design life" of the building, but often not much more. The simplest way to change this is to extend the design life, which would result in stainless steels or another more expensive material being used in this application.

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2. wahern+0c[view] [source] 2021-05-25 22:39:57
>>brutus+J5
> The author states that "one of iron’s unalterable properties is that it rusts" yet further on acknowledges the existence of stainless

Even stainless steel rusts, just more slowly. Roughly 10-100x more slowly, judging by https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1124/ML112490377.pdf and https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/10/23/8705/pdf.

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3. strken+LC[view] [source] 2021-05-26 02:08:38
>>wahern+0c
I went and googled the most obvious solutions I could think of for protecting rebar from rust.

- dipping rebar in epoxy is sometimes done, but a single nick in the coating causes all the erosion to concentrate in that one spot, so it can be more dangerous than just uncoated rebar

- galvanised rebar works much better than epoxy, and resists corrosion at lower pH levels than normal iron, but may result in more metal loss under some conditions

- sacrificial anodes (as per the article) can and are used, but exactly how is quite complicated: if they're embedded in the concrete, the zinc breaks down into substances that can weaken it

- concrete is naturally alkaline, with cement being manufactured partly from lime, and this protects the rebar, but too high a pH causes other problems in the concrete itself, so you can't just dump alkaline substances into the mixture forever

- you can apparently use fibreglass as rebar, but I have no idea if it's any good, or what happens to fibreglass if you leave it embedded in concrete for a century

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4. sjg007+Gh5[view] [source] 2021-05-27 14:02:17
>>strken+LC
If you can use fiberglass as rebar then maybe we could reuse/remanufacture wind turbine blades as rebar.
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