While studying a 2,000-year-old construction site in Pompeii, MIT researchers uncovered new insights into the Roman building process, including the key ingredients needed to develop long-standing durable Roman concrete, reports Luis Prada for Vice. “Ancient Roman builders were ‘hot-mixing,’ which means that they dumped volcanic ash and powdered quicklime together dry, then added water later, triggering a chemical reaction that cooked the mixture from the inside,” writes Prada.
A new paper by Prof. Admir Masic and his colleagues details their new findings on the specific ingredients used by ancient Romans to develop durable concrete, reports Sarah Kuta for Smithsonian Magazine. “Looking ahead, the findings could help improve modern construction techniques, informing the development of next-generation durable, low-carbon concrete,” writes Kuta.
A new paper by Prof. Admir Masic and his colleagues reinforces his theory that the ancient Romans used a technique called “hot-mixing” to create concrete, reports Andrew Paul for Popular Science. “The evidence resides at an ancient Roman construction site preserved in great detail by the Mount Vesuvius eruption,” explains Paul. “Isotopic analysis confirmed that the workers in Pompeii relied on hot-mixing when making their concrete.”
By studying a workshop that was buried in Pompeii almost 2,000 years ago, Prof. Admir Masic and his colleagues have uncovered how the ancient Romans created self-healing and long-lasting concrete, reports James Woodford for New Scientist. Masic and his team were stunned at how “exceptionally well preserved” the site was and that it offered an opportunity to understand Roman concreting methods in a way that “no laboratory reconstruction could ever replicate”. He adds: “The materials were exactly as they were at the moment the eruption froze the city in time,”
While visiting a house that was under renovation when Mount Vesuvius erupted, MIT researchers were able to confirm the tools and ingredients used by ancient Romans to create long-lasting concrete, reports Humberto Basilio for Scientific American. “The hot mixing method creates fragmented, highly porous lime clasts within the mortar that allow calcium to easily travel through the material and recrystallize to fill cracks,” Basilio explains. “Understanding and mastering this “self-healing” technology will allow engineers to use the technique in modern construction.”
Prof. Admir Masic and his colleagues have confirmed that ancient Romans utilized “hot-mixing,” a technique that combines quicklime with volcanic rock, volcanic ash, and water, to create concrete that has lasted for thousands of years, reports Margherita Bassi for Gizmodo. “The team also discovered weights and measurement tools, which they propose may have been used to maintain concrete pouring ratios and build straight, even walls,” writes Bassi. “In short, the site revealed the clearest evidence yet of the ancient Roman use of hot-mixing in concrete.”
While analyzing samples from a newly-discovered construction site in Pompeii, researchers at MIT confirmed the ingredients and methods behind the ancient Romans’ durable and self-healing concrete, reports Will Dunham for Reuters. "Modern concretes generally lack intrinsic self-healing capability, which is increasingly important as we seek longer-lasting, lower-maintenance infrastructure," explains Prof. Admir Masic. "While the ancient process itself is not a direct replacement for modern standards, the principles revealed can inform the design of next-generation durable, low-carbon concretes."
Leah Ellis, a former MIT postdoc and co-founder of MIT startup Sublime Systems, speaks with Nature reporter Jacqui Thornton about the creation of the company. “I felt that the word Sublime encapsulated the spirit of excellence, transcendence and purity that we intend to exemplify as we build a technology and a company that we hope will change the world — and the inherent properties of cement itself.”
Prof. Caitlin Mueller has been named Innovator of the Year by Architectural Record for her work advancing a “vision for building design and construction that unites these disciplines with computation to create structure that are sustainable, high performing, and delightful,” reports Architectural Record. “Her group develops computational design and digital fabrication methods that integrate efficiency, performance, material circularity, and architectural expression,” Architectural Record notes. “This work spans robotic assembly of optimized trusses, fabrication of low-cost earthen and concrete systems, and algorithmic strategies for reusing salvaged wood and reassembled concrete parts.”
Leah Ellis, a former MIT postdoc and co-founder of MIT startup Sublime Systems, speaks with Nature reporter Emma Ulker about the company’s mission to reduce carbon emissions from cement production, how her work with co-founder Prof. Yet-Ming Chiang helped inspire her entrepreneurial journey, and her philosophy as a science entrepreneur. “At Sublime, we are tackling a hard problem — pun intended — because the cement industry is one of the most difficult to approach, owing to its sheer scale,” explains Ellis. “The motivation for our work is that change in cement-making technology has a significant impact — it’s really only once in a millennium that you get to rethink such a foundational and monumental building material.”
Architect reporter Blaine Brownell spotlights Prof. Caitlin Mueller’s work repurposing “discarded tree forks from urban forestry projects [and] repurposing the nodes as structural joints in hybrid reclaimed-engineered wood constructions.” Mueller and her team have “developed computer programs to catalog 3D scans of the tree forks as well as determine the appropriate cuts for their intended structural applications,” explains Brownell. “An algorithm matches prepared tree forks to three-dimensional intersections in the intended structural framework, streamlining the design process.”
Boston Business Journal reporter Eli Chavez spotlights Sublime Systems, an MIT startup “focused on low-carbon cement production.” “Sublime’s mission is to have a swift and massive impact measured in the amount of cement we produce and sell,” says CEO Leah Ellis, a former MIT postdoc. “We are super-focused on increasing our cement production.”
Chronicle visits Prof. Skylar Tibbits and the Self-Assembly Lab to see how they are embedding intelligence into the materials around us, including furniture, clothing and buildings. Prof. Caitlin Mueller and graduate student Sandy Curth are digging into eco-friendly construction with programmable mud by “taking a low-cost material and a really fast manufacturing system to make buildings out of very, very low climate impact materials.” Says Tibbits: “MIT is a really wild place, and most people know of it for its technical expertise…But what I am really inspired by is on the creative end, the design spectrum. I think the mix of those two is super special.” He adds: “We can ask the right questions and discover new science, and we can also solve the right problems through engineering.”
Prof. Admir Masic speaks with New York Times reporter Amos Zeeberg about his research studying the benefits of lime clasts – a material used in ancient Roman infrastructure. According to Masic’s research, “these lime clasts were actually reservoirs of calcium that helped fill in cracks, making the concrete self-healing,” writes Zeeberg. “As cracks formed, water would seep in and dissolve the calcium in the lime, which then formed solid calcium carbonate, essentially creating new rock that filled in the crack.”
Fast Company reporter Adele Peters spotlights how researchers at MIT have combined cement with carbon black to make concrete that can store energy as one of the climate tech innovations that provide hope “that it’s still possible to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.” With this new technology, “the foundation of your future house could eventually store solar power from your roof,” explains Peters.