CONCRETE PROGRESS FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE THIRD MILLENNIUM

"Concrete Progress" deals with the technology that made concrete the most widely used building material in the world in the course of the past hundred years, and the most indispensable for the global socio-economic development in the new millennium. It offers an insight into many people's dedicated, exploratory concrete research, and into strategic planning and management of research and its transfer to engineering practice.This book is introduced by retrospectively highlighting the international history of concrete technology and uses. It traces the socio-economic impact of concrete from the magnificent construction epoch of Roman antiquity, to the Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century, and its continuity between the two World Wars. Then, in more detail, it describes concrete technology progress during the first post World War II decades, which coincided with - and indeed depended on - the demands for concrete to house millions of homeless people and to reconstruct the industrial manufacturing capacity and the infrastructures. The outreach message of "Concrete Progress" is both to cement and concrete professionals in the developing countries, where the creation of new research and engineering skill still is pristine, and to the hidebound research and practice in the rich industrialised, technology satisfied parts of the world.