3 ms·
They'd also need a significant source of Calcium. > one possibility is that concrete is a better understood material than some novel "concrete like structural
by robinsoh 5y ago
They'd also need a significant source of Calcium.
> one possibility is that concrete is a better understood material than some novel "concrete like structural material," so it's more acceptable in safety critical situations (e.g. people know how it fails, how to detect failures, how to remediate problems, etc.).
Your explanation and argument looks correct to me. However, I should point out that concrete structures fail regularly and frequently, and sadly with great loss of human life, most recently in Miami. I should also point out that I've seen this argument used as a tactical trick. I watched a Microsoft rep using this argument successfully convince a management team that they should use Embedded Windows instead of Linux because, just as you pointed out, "we know how it fails", "we know how to detect failures", "we know how to remediate problems".
- tablespoon 5y agoI think the difference between materials and software through is that with materials, there's definitely a better understanding that comes with actual aging that you can't really get otherwise. With some new material, they'd probably need to rely significantly on accelerated aging tests (at least for a few decades), and there's always the question with those of how accurately those actually model real aging under real conditions. That's not to say they shouldn't try new materials, just that the rollout probably should be slower, and maybe not so good for tackling climate change. For that reason, I can see the benefit of a less carbon intensive way to produce an existing material, since that could be rolled out/scaled up immediately without some of the concerns of alternatives.