this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2024
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No Stupid Questions

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Why is it so expensive and is there an alternative out there that won’t break so easily especially in the winter? My state is spending like a billion dollars a year on roads that they’ll probably have to fix in 5 years, it really seems like a huge waste of money.

Good Public transportation would fix a lot of these costs I know but what other road materials/solutions are out there?

Thank you for the answers and for putting up with my follow up questions. I’m learning a lot!

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Thanks, I had no idea asphalt was a byproduct of petroleum. Is concrete just rocks?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago

Not technical definitions:

Asphalt is for roads is small rocks held together by petroleum byproducts.

Concrete is small rocks held together by cement.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago

Concrete is gravel, sand, cement, lyme, and water, mixed in various ratios.

There's a lot of variations and additives that can change how quickly it cures, often to speed it up or slow it down to account for weather (temperature and humidity play a huge part in how it cures), or to modify the pace of how it cures so you can keep building on it if you're building vertically.

It's a simple concept that gets incredibly complicated very quickly.

Big rocks, little rocks, cement, water.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Like the other comment says, concrete is rocks of various sizes (called "aggregate") mixed with a cement and other additives to change its particular properties.

The cement is the really important point, because once water is added to the cement, it undergoes a chemical reaction which hardens it. Saying cement "dries" isn't quite correct - yes, it stops being wet, but some of the water actually ends up incorporated into the molecules of the final cement. This is also why cement is really hard to recycle - you have to undo that chemical reaction, as opposed to asphalt which stays the same material.

Fun fact: When concrete is mixed at a big plant, it begins curing immediately. Concrete being carried in those big mixer trucks needs to be delivered before it cures in the truck!