Barrett Group Emyvale Concrete
Joseph Barrett & Sons Ltd.
TA Mullin Concrete (Emyvale) Co. Monaghan
Tel: 047 87539
Fax: 047 87578
www.barrettsconcrete.com
E: info@barrettsconcrete.com
Suppliers of Blocks, Brisk, Industrial Blocks, Insulation, Mortar Mix, White Sand & gravel, Readymix Concrete, Precast Concrete, Hollow-Core Concrete Flooring
Concrete is a composite material composed of aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement which hardens over time. Most use of the term “concrete” refers to Portland cement concrete or to concretes made with other hydraulic cements, such as ciment fondu. However, technically road pavement is also a type of concrete, “asphaltic concrete”, where the cement material is bitumen.
In Portland cement concrete (and other hydraulic cement concretes), when the aggregate is mixed together with the dry cement and water, they form a fluid mass that is easily molded into shape. The cement reacts chemically with the water and other ingredients to form a hard matrix which binds all the materials together into a durable stone-like material that has many uses.Often, additives (such as pozzolans or superplasticizers) are included in the mixture to improve the physical properties of the wet mix or the finished material. Most concrete is placed with reinforcing materials (rebar) to provide tensile and bending strength.
Famous concrete structures include the Hoover Dam, the Panama Canal and the Roman Pantheon. The earliest large-scale users of concrete technology were the ancient Romans, and concrete was widely used in the Roman Empire. The Colosseum in Rome was built largely of concrete, and the concrete dome of the Pantheon is the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome.
After the Roman Empire collapsed, use of concrete became rare until the technology was redeveloped in the mid-18th century. Today, concrete is the most widely used man-made material (measured by tonnage).
