They’re using crushed rocks and mining material leftovers to create artificial sand, thereby reducing their dependence on natural sand by around 80% so far. Saved y’all a click.
Which, if it works well, is a big deal as the headline claims.
The world is slowly but surely running out of sand which has the right consistency and courseness to be used as an ingredient for concrete. Manufacturing that sand artificially so that it is suitable for concrete is rather tricky, from what I understand.
That said… I’ve seen the weak-ass concrete mixes used in some Chinese tofu-dreg buildings. Let’s hope that the artificial sand is not the culprit there.
When I lived there it was normal for pieces of buildings to fall off and kill people. One building, all the embellishment was made of painted Styrofoam lol. China building construction is horrendous.
At least if the styrofoam falls down it can’t kill someone by hitting them on the head. Maybe it was for safety reasons? /s
It’ll be fake artificial sand, normal sand that shouldn’t be used for concrete
I love close to the pismo dunes, all I see is sand, back yard is sand, sand gets in my house, I’m blown away there is a ahortage
It’s not that there is a shortage of sand in general. There is a shortage for the correct kind of sand needed to make a sufficiently strong concrete mix, in the places where that concrete is needed
Would crushed beton also work? I mean, if the piece size and form is right.
Normally crushed materials don’t work well because the shape of the particles. Sand is smoothed by years of waves, crushed rock is jagged. This leads to issues with viscosity.
A direct example: railroad rocks. Rail tracks are laid on very well engineered rocks, that are designed to lock together under the weight of a train. They have a roughly 1x1x2 cross sectional ratio, specifically for that purpose. You don’t want that happening when you pour concrete.
I live at in Central Florida, and there is a sand mine right down the road from me. The sand is so predominant here that there is literally a natural sand dune near there, nowhere near a shoreline. The local road divides it. We literally live on a beach 60 miles from shore.
Colorado has https://www.nps.gov/grsa/index.htm over 800 miles from the nearest ocean, and 8200 feet above sea level.
And of course the’s also the Sahara.
Florida is mostly sandy soil and water, it will all be part of the ocean some day.
I’m somewhat relieved they weren’t grinding up plastic waste to mix into their sand.
Crushing gravel and other mining waste into sand isn’t quite “artificial” sand…
Like how there’s no such thing as an artificial diamond, just a man made one.
The sand is sand, it’s just mand made.
artificial adjective ar·ti·fi·cial ˌär-tə-ˈfi-shᵊl 1 a : made, produced, or done by humans especially to seem like something natural : man-made an artificial reef artificial sweetener an artificial limb artificial diamonds
There isn’t sand. Humans did a thing. There’s sand.
There isn’t a diamond. Humans did a thing. There’s a diamond.
Those are the literal definitions of “artificial”.
Now compare my examples to:
Artificial wood paneling
Do you see the difference now?
Could you possibly get magine a word where the two examples I gave were intentionally similar and I wasn’t giving every possible permeation?
You didn’t understand what I said, which is fine, fucking normal even…
But instead of asking questions, you stated the obvious.
We could have had a deep philosophical, physical, even material science conversation about this. Or rather I’d have elaborated and youd have played the part of a rubber duck.
But instead you just said whatever the fuck popped into your head in the moment
We could have had a deep philosophical … conversation about this.
Except you fell for the same trap hundreds of thousands of philosophers before you had. Talking right past people because you refuse to understand what they meant by the words they chose to use.
“Artificial” describes the process something underwent to become what it is. It doesn’t mean that it’s materially different than its natural counterpart.
So what’s ironic is that the deeply philosophical conversation you referenced; that conversation could have happened, but instead you chose to hop on your high horse and argue nonsense about material differences while the argument was really about procedural differences.
Had you rose your point, reasonably and fairly so, as a congruent but also slightly off-topic one, it might have been entertained more meaningfully.
Again…
You could have asked and learned something
The hubris on you is phenomenal. I don’t mind having not “learned something” in this case. Be nicer. You ought learn something from this experience, not me.
Look at the likes given to each post
Tofu Dreg, they also love using beach sand as an aggregate. Problem is all the salt, then the rebar rusts, swells and destroys the concrete.
/used to pour concrete.
What are they destroying to make this? Have they run out of beaches to tear up.
" crushing rocks and leftover materials from mining"
You can just read the article to find out.
Never!
Lemme guess. Impacts on concrete availability and construction supply chains
Nope!
