Young's Modulus is a the measure of elasticity and stiffness of multiple materials such as bronze, concrete, nylon and other materials. It is meant to characterize diffrent materials depending on what their strain level is. How this is going to relate to our project is that we our testing concrete bunnies under a stress and elastic test and see how the concrete reacts.
Elastic- The ability to return to the starting size when deformed or streched
Plastic- The ability to be shaped or formed
Yield Point- The stress at which an elastic material under increasing stress ceases to behave
elastically
Ultimate Strength- The maximum tensile stress that a material can withstand before rupture
Arcosanti is a experimental city built in Phoenix, Arizona that was designed to be architecture and ecology incorporated. Designed by famous architecture Paolo Solari. It was built on 25 acres of land and uses arcology, a method that is used to use the full potential of the land while minmalizing the impact on Earth.
It would sound blunt and messed up if I said "We are testing the strength of bunnies"! So to clarify, I mean we are about to test concrete bunnies under weights to test their breaking points. This test is meant to see if our concrete mixture is optimal and can beat out others. This test consist of taking the molds of the chocolate bunnies and put concrete in them to let them harden into a concrete bunny. Now there is a catch. We are making bunnies that have nothing in them, ones that have nylon cotton in them, ones that have metal wire in them, and ones with fiberglass mesh. This is to see if these variables affect the failure point of the concrete. We have not tested the bunnies yet. When we get back from spring break, I will update results from the test and elaborate on how it went.
As of right now, the new project we alumni are getting our hands on is concrete. Now before I get into detail, let me explain what concrete is. A common misconception is that concrete and cement are the same, which is undoubtedly false. Cement is a chemical binder that holds all the components of concrete together. It is usually made from limestone. Concrete is a composite material made with three specific things: Aggregate, Cement, and Water. Aggregate is basically a construction stew composted of sand, gravel, crushed stone, slag, recycled concrete and some geosynthetic aggregates. Concrete is the most used man made material in the world. Tonnes and tonnes are used yearly by companies around the world. What makes concrete so popular is that its extremely cheap, water resistant, fire resistant, shock resistant, erosion resistant, widely available, very strong, and long lasting(I'm talking centuries long lasting). It's also one of the oldest construction material; used since the Ancient Roman years.
OK. Now that you got some knowledge on that, lets progress to denizen. I don't know what our project is going to be just yet. Once I find out, I'll update the blog. Currently we were just finishing two things. A concrete mixture test and a concrete slump test. Te concrete mixture test was a trial and error test to see what mixtures of concrete were the best when we put them to the test in the strength test. We let the mixtures harden and dropped them from a specific height. We would record the amount of damage the concrete sustained. If the concrete was damaged badly, there was too little water. If there was little to no damage, the concrete had a good mixture. After we found out our optimum formulas, we go to the slump tests. Concrete slump tests are test made for freshly made concrete to test their flexibility and strength. There are three types of slump out comes: Collapse, Shear, and True Slump. A collapse is self explanatory. The whole slump, which the concrete is placed in called a slump core, falls apart into a pile of gelatinous goop. A shear is when the slump maintains part of its shape, but one side collapsed or sunk in. A true slump is the optimum slump. It is when the slump keeps its shape but sinks slightly, buckling the middle to cause it to sink at least 1/3 of its size. This is an important step because our mixtures must achieve a true slump in order for the concrete to be optimal.
Currently, we just finished our slump test and strength test. Now we move onto the phase we our currently in; Strength test II. But now its a twist. Previously, we each got our own chocolate bunnies(which was delicious by the way J.A) that we ate and took the plastic moldings they came in. Today, well yesterday, we sprayed the moldings with PAM to prevent sticking and poured in concrete with two different compositions. The normal one had just concrete. Nothing more. Nothing less. The experimental one had nylon fibers placed into it to see if that will improve the structural integrity of the concrete. We will make more bunnies then put them into a stress test to see when the bunnies will crack at what weight. Personally, I believe this is fun. And i believe it can only get better.
Arcosanti is a experimental city built in Phoenix, Arizona that was designed to be architecture and ecology incorporated. Designed by famous architecture Paolo Solari. It was built on 25 acres of land and uses arcology, a method that is used to use the full potential of the land while minmalizing the impact on Earth.
