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Iran's Smart Concrete Can Cope With Earthquakes and Bombs

Posted by samzenpus on from the built-tough dept.

PolygamousRanchKid writes "Iran is an earthquake zone, so its engineers have developed some of the toughest building materials in the world. Ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) could also be used to protect hidden nuclear installations from the artificial equivalent of small earthquakes, namely bunker-busting bombs. UHPC is based—like its quotidian cousins—on sand and cement. In addition, though, it is doped with powdered quartz (the pure stuff, rather than the tainted variety that makes up most sand) and various reinforcing metals and fibers. UHPC can withstand more compression than other forms of concrete. UHPC is also more flexible and durable than conventional concrete. It can therefore be used to make lighter and more slender structures. All of which is fine and dandy for safer dams and better sewers, which threaten no one. But UHPC's potential military applications are more intriguing—and for many, more worrying. Deep bunkers can be tackled in other ways. America's Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) has looked at what is known in the jargon as functional defeat, in other words bombing their entrances shut or destroying their electrical systems with electromagnetic pulses. They are also working on active penetrators—bombs which can tunnel through hundreds of meters of earth, rock and concrete. Development work is also under way on esoteric devices such as robot snakes, carrying warheads, which can infiltrate via air ducts and cable runs."

6 of 609 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Dear americans by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As a red-blooded American who served in the military and comes from a family who also did(mother served in army, father served in Marines and saw action in Vietnam, Grandfather who was bomber aircrew during WWII, uncle served in USAF), I endorse your comment wholeheartedly.

    I know the Slashdot leadership and a good majority of their chickenhawk wannabe-military fanboy readership subscribe to Judeo-Christian beliefs about being in the moral right as nation-builders, but if you're gonna tacitly encourage war with Iran, then enlist, pick up a fuckin' gun, and go shoot yerselves some strangers. See your buddies turned into hamburger and shuttled back into the states to live their lives as disfigured vegetable abominations, and you can become a nonfunctional drug-addicted alcoholic having to cope with those horrors for life. There are laws to reward employers for hiring veterans, but all it takes is one flashback flipout to make even the most patriotic employer reexamine their hiring decisions. Kids can't even afford school because that money went to some glorified security guard being paid $300,000 a year.

    If you're gonna go big, then at least do it right - indiscriminately carpet-bomb the entire Middle East, including Israel.

  2. Re:Today's dose of fearmongering... by wmac1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    1- Israel is not a neighbor of Iran. Get a Geography 101 course

    2- Iran has not announced it wants to annihilate Israel. It wished for Israeli government to lack existence.

    3- Israel has at least 200-300 nukes and can defend itself. No need for crying wolf. Iran will never use nukes against Israel. A single nuke on Tehran will kill 15 million.

  3. Back in 2003 ... by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Back in 2003, an Iranian student, with the help of a professor from Iran, won the first prize in a competition organized by the American Concrete Institute

    For more info, look into this page ---> http://www.concrete.org/STUDENTS/st_concreteprojects03_winners.htm

    About the prize winning concrete ?

    It has been used for building Iran's underground bunkers, which house Iran's nuclear facilities

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    1. Re:Back in 2003 ... by Xest · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I don't know why people keep parroting this, it's simply not true. It had some validity to it a few years back, but even then the IAEA has always had some concerns.

      In recent years though the IAEA's stance if that they've found some evidence that Iran did continue a nuclear weapons programme, and has made it quite clear that Iran is not giving it the access and information it needs to confirm that it is in compliance. Whilst this doesn't mean Iran is not in compliance, it is certainly not the case that it is in compliance - Iran wont let the IAEA confirm that it's compliant, make of that what you will, but I suspect if a country was in compliance there'd be absolutely no reason to not let the IAEA confirm that to be the case. The fact they wont let the IAEA confirm whether they are or are not compliant is a cause for concern in itself and is in itself a breach of the NPT.

      A bit of America/Israel bashing is all well and good, god only knows they've done enough to deserve it, but this attitude of defending Iran as an extreme anti-Israeli/US stance is even more absurd. A lot of people here go on about how Iran is an innocent peaceful nation that's never attacked anyone and so forth, but that's also complete rubbish, sure they may not directly declare war but they absolutely do carry out war by proxy (where the proxy is usually groups like Hamas, Hezbollah) and they do carry out clandestine ops. When you point this out people jump in and say "but the US does that too!", sure they do, but that doesn't somehow make it right. Keep in mind that even the staunchly anti-US Russia has in recent years refused to make itself some money selling Iran new military hardware - this is because Russia is concerned that Iran has links to groups in Chechnya and so forth too. The fact is, even if Iran doesn't declare war directly, everyone knows what it gets up to.

      So hate Israel/America all you want, god only knows I've had enough of their actions, but to then jump to the extreme of defending Iran is just fucking idiotic. Iran is as much of a problem as Israel is that's for sure, and I'd argue with Iran's destabilisation of Lebanon so they can have their own proxy army on Israel's doorstep, they're worse. The only flip side to it all is that Iran is largely incompetent at this sort of thing, so when their bombers succeed in little more than blowing their own legs off in Asia, it's almost comical, Mossad in contrast gets the job done which, depending on your viewpoint on things either makes them better, worse, or just as bad.

      Really, the fundamental reality of the situation is that Iran, Israel, the US and so forth are all as bad as each other. My personal view is that if Israel/US attack Iran then I have little sympathy for Iran, it's a game they chose to play, and when you choose to play a game, you can't really cry when you lose. They still have every opportunity to bow out gracefully.

  4. Re:Today's dose of fearmongering... by cold+fjord · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Go to the US with a few copies of the Qur'an and see what happens.

    The outcome is pretty predictable: Oh, I see you have a Quran. You must be a Muslim? There are millions of them in the US. Have a nice day.

    Wow, that is pretty horrible, but not on a par with nations living under Sharia.

    Saudi jailed for discussing the Bible

    RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) — A court sentenced a teacher to 40 months in prison and 750 lashes for “mocking religion” after he discussed the Bible and praised Jews, a Saudi newspaper reported yesterday.

    In Iran, Covert Christian Converts Live With Secrecy and Fear

    Leaving Islam for another religion, or apostasy, has long invited reprisals from the Iranian government, forcing the likes of Illyas and his family into absolute secrecy, practicing their new beliefs only in the privacy of their home. In Iran, Christians are prohibited from seeking Muslim converts, although there has been tolerance for those who are born into Christian families.

    The government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has introduced legislation before the Iranian Majlis that would mandate the death penalty for apostates from Islam, a sign that it will brook no proselytizing in the country. "Life for so-called apostates in Iran has never been easy, but it could become literally impossible if Iran passes this new draft penal code," says Joseph Grieboski, the president of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy in Washington. "For anyone who dares question the regime's religious ideology, there could soon be no room to argue—only death.''

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  5. Saudi Arabia is not Iran by yuje · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ....And what does Saudi Arabia have to do with Iran? They're close allies with the US and enemies with Iran, which happens to have a fair number of native Christians (mostly Armenians and Georgians) as well as Jews and Zoroastrians who actually are allowed to own Bibles and Torahs are allowed exemptions from certain Islamic laws such as the ones on alcohol consumption. Said Christians and Jews and Zoroastrians also have their own guaranteed members of parliament, as set by the Iranian constitution.

    I certainly won't sugarcoat the condition of minorities in Iran as paradise, and as an atheist I wouldn't want to live in either country, but Iran is certainly leaps and bounds better than the Saudis in terms of minorities. The Saudis don't even tolerate other sects of Islam, and in fact they destroyed the tomb of Mohammed, as well as other prominent Muslim figures, in the fear that they might turn into objects of worship by Islamic sects that have traditionally venerated at those sites. Bringing up Saudi Arabia as a reason to stop Iran really is a red herring.