The other day a colleague sent me an article (Business Insider, 2017) on the new SpaceX-funded Boring Tunnel by Elon Musk. By the end of the 2nd sentence, MY MIND WAS BLOWN.
ELON MUSK YOU MUST READ THIS ARTICLE!
I’ll summarize the Business Insider article for all other readers:
Equation 1 — My Interpretation of the New Elon Musk, Boring Project
The Business Insider article proved once again that Elon Musk, and his SpaceX / Boring Tunnel team, are breaking the boundaries between science fiction and reality. They are effectively leaping from theory to application and changing the world.
Concrete is one of the most versatile construction materials in the world. From foundations to pavements, and more, concrete will be the backbone of your tunnel project. Thousands upon thousands of cubic yards of concrete (GO CONCRETE!!!) will be placed as part of this new project.
In light of this fact please consider the following:
Once the concrete is placed, its sole purpose is to sit there and do nothing else…
And while the reality is that concrete IS doing its part by just staying in place, there are many more things that we can do to STANDARD CONCRETE to give that concrete a SECOND LIFE.
Here are some awesome ideas that grace the presence of a lot of University basements. GREAT IDEAS that will help you and your team usher in a new CONCRETE RENAISSANCE.
- Energy Harvesting Concrete — With high-speed skates and heavy vehicles there will inherently be a certain amount of vibration. By combining the use of piezoelectric materials and carbon-nanotubes in the concrete mixture with some phase change materials, you effectively create a NANO-ENGINEERED CONCRETE that CONVERTS and STORES ENERGY.
- Recycled Concrete Aggregate Concrete — Whitney (President and CEO) and I (Director of Research and Development) are living and loving the dream in Colorado, the Rocky Mountain state. Often times when we speak about concrete, we mention how Colorado is running out of quality rock for concrete. PEOPLE ARE BEWILDERED AND PERPLEXED — WE ARE FROM THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN STATE. But it’s a harsh reality that places like COLORADO and CALIFORNIA are running out of quality rock and sand for concrete (aggregate). The aggregate currently being used is susceptible to physical and chemical attacks. Recently, agencies all over the world have recognized the benefit of using RECYCLED CONCRETE AGGREGATE IN CONCRETE (RCA-C). The ultimate objective of RCA-C is to reduce the amount of natural aggregate that needs to be ripped and stripped from OUR BIG BLUE PLANET and DIMINISH THE OUT OF WASTE CONCRETE TO BE LANDFILLED.
- Self-Sensing Concrete — This is my last and without a doubt my favorite, concept. Concrete can be turned into a sensor. Whether you take advantage of the vibration of the structure through strain gauges or identify the change in heat through thermal sensors at different depths, or even piggyback off the energy harvesting idea, you can relate the amount of energy developed to the amount of traffic, speed of traffic, etc. CONCRETE STRUCTURES CAN, AND HAVE BEEN TURNED, INTO SELF-SENSING STRUCTURES.
All that being said, there are a wide variety of awesome ideas you and your team can help usher into the construction and concrete industries. And while both of these industries are forward-thinking and forward moving it is difficult to innovate materials and practices when a contract has less than 0.01% set aside for research and development. MOST OF THESE GREAT IDEAS GET LOST IN A UNIVERSITY BASEMENT.
Elon Musk, if you made it to the bottom of this article.
Help us SAVE THE WORLD WITH ALL THE CONCRETE IN IT.
Written By: Jon Belkowitz, PhD, PE