What Are The Limitations Of Using Concrete In Construction?

What Are The Limitations Of Using Concrete In Construction?

Concrete is nowadays the most widely used material. Yet there are a lot of disadvantages related to it. Most of these disadvantages are due to the constituents used in the formation of concrete. Although concrete is cheap in price thus affordable and is easily available, there are adverse effects on the environment. Concrete is tried to modify by adding admixtures to it to decrease its negative impact, but it didn’t help out much. Here is how Concrete Contractors of Macon use concrete to their advantage and how they do it the right way.

1. Low tensile strength of concrete. The tensile strength of concrete is comparatively low. Whereas compression is a different phenomenon. The compressive strength of concrete is 10 times more than the tensile strength. In order to increase the tensile strength of the concrete, various polymers and fibers are used with it.

2. It has a low specific strength. The term specific strength is referred to as the ratio of strength to density. Steel is basically having double specific strength than that of normal grade concretes. It can be controlled by increasing the strength and decreasing the density. Lightweight and heavyweight concretes are lacking this property.

3. Deals perfectly with the cracks. Cracking of the concrete can be caused due to several factors. These crack results to the corrosion of concrete further damaging and causing high risks. To solve this problem, a special type of concrete is called prestressed concrete. This helps overcome the cracks issue caused due to heavy reinforcing corrosion and low tensile strength.

4. Concrete is brittle. The ductility or brittleness can become the main reason behind the failure of any material. The quasi-brittle nature of concrete causes deformation and then failure. Concrete is not so tough. Especially the plain concrete faces this issue. Though it can make a material stable, that it has to be hardened first.

5. It takes time to cure completely. It takes about a month to attain complete compressive strength for concrete. It is one of the biggest disadvantages of concrete. But there is a way found to minimize this time of curing and casting. Admixtures are the substances used to reduce the time of curing.

6. Framework has to be done. The concrete that is freshly prepared is in liquid form. It has to be mold into shapes and then settled into casts of cubic or cylindrical shapes. These are now used after hardening it for about a month when it has gained the whole compressive and tensile strength. The castor molds might be of plastic or wood or steel. It requires labor and time for the proper framework. Several techniques are adopted in order to overcome all the limitations.

So these are some top 6 disadvantages associated with the use of concrete in the construction of houses and buildings. Also, it causes greenhouse effects which are very harmful to live beings. The increasing use of concrete must be reduced to protect the environment from great damages.

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