2020/01/29 by Jackson MacFarlane, MacFarlane, Jackson, Tiziana Vanorio +4
Arts and Humanities · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Building materials and conservation #Corrosion Behavior and Inhibition #FOS: Physical sciences #Geophysics (physics.geo-ph) #Maritime and Coastal Archaeology #physics.geo-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2001.10974
arxiv created 2020/01/29 · openalex publication_date 2020/01/29 · arxiv updated 2020/01/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Roman-era concrete is the iconic embodiment of long-term physicochemical resilience. We investigated the basis of this behavior across scales of observations by coupling time-lapse (4-D) tomographic imaging of macroscopic mechanical stressing with structural microscopy and chemical spectroscopy on Roman marine concrete (RMC) from ancient harbors in Italy and Israel. Stress-strain measurements revealed that RMC creeps and exhibits a ductile deformation mode. The permeability of specimens from Italy were found to be low due to increased matrix-aggregate bonding. Structural and chemical imaging shows the presence of well-developed sulfur-rich, fibrous minerals that are intertwined and embedded in a crossbred matrix having the chemical traits of both a calcium-aluminum-silicate-hydrate and a geopolymer. This latter likely reflects the ultra-alkaline volcanic nature of the primary source materials. We hypothesize that the fine interweave of sulfur-rich fibers within this crossbred matrix enhances aggregate bonding, which altogether contributes to the durability of RMC.