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Iran's Smart Concrete Can Cope With Earthquakes and Bombs
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."
...brought to you by "the department of give-us-more-tax-dollars."
capable of withstanding repeated ballistic impacts: Many engineers are seen with iPads doing structural-ballistic simulations involving various geometries made of wood, ice and stone, and green "test animals", whose survival indicates the durability of said structures.
Will it blend?
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Hey, you war-mongering assholes, fuck off and stop trying to justify your next mass-murder. If you start this war, the blood is all on your hands, just like the last one was.
Nobody else find ironic that the "America's Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA)" is studying how to attack Iran, a country that it's physically unable to even touch America?
This amazing product not only slices, dices and puree's, but melts faces, and causes near catatonic states for non-purified members of the elite guard(ranked IR5 or lower).
Om, nomnomnom...
So, just because this "high performance" concrete was developed in Iran, it has dangerous military applications? Dangerous as in able to withstand US bombs? Should we start banning defensive technologies in order to make it easier for the US to invade?
If this was developed in any other nation, "military applications" would never have been mentioned.
Please don't fall for the fearmongering, Iran is not going to attack anyone, they know very well they would be instantly overrun. This is Iraq all over again.
As an aside, while I very much object to anyone including the US having nuclear weapons, I can't really see why Iran having them - if they indeed do - is a problem while Israel having them is not, a country that has constantly refused to sign the non-proliferation treaty and employs an Apartheid-like policy towards Palestinians.
Iran is a very religious country, so is the US. Muslims want to kill Christians, Christians want to kill Muslims. Iran has corrupt leaders, that allow their people to suffer hunger, poor health care and bad education in order to spend millions in armament, this is also true about the US. It's also true that Iran is a fairly small country with few resources, while the US is a huge country and the most resourceful on the planet, and while Iran has failed in most military operations it has attempted, the US has succeeded. Iran is trying to get some nuclear weapons, the US is the only country to have ever used them on a civilian population. Currently Iran has no nuclear weapons, while the US has thousands. Iran is not currently at war, while the US has been consistently starting wars every year for 200 years.
And yet, when the US develops a new weapon, a new fighter, a new bomb, a new droid, or any other military advancement and clearly plans to use it soon at war, it's praised for its technological achievement. But when Iran develops a new construction technology, that has tens of applications, one of them, defense, then it's something we should be worried about and it makes Iran evil, and we should ask the glorious united states of america to destroy them real soon.
Fuck that bullshit, your western christian theocracy is no better than the eastern muslim theocracies, and just as crazy, delusional and violent.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
1) Economy in the toilet
2) Election looming
3) No real credible enemies around (like who would be stupid enough to attack a country whose military budget dwarfs most of the rest of the planet)
4) INVENT ENEMY out of thin air using tried and true scaremongering.
5) PROFIT! (and/or re-election)
Three Squirrels
Putting aside the obvious political flamebait, are we really now at a point where anything that's been at all updated since the 1950s is considered "smart"? The term makes sense for things that have a microcontroller added to them, but that's not the case here. This concrete isn't any smarter than my toothbrush.
thanks for the heads up!
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
If the US actually attacks Iran that isn't going to matter and if it doesn't then it doesn't matter.
So it doesn't matter.
to the point of it not mattering... Who says you need to drop one bomb on a target? Can't you just drop a bomb that makes a big crater... and then drop a bomb in the middle of that crater to make a deeper crater... and then drop a bomb in the middle of that crater to make a deeper crater... you see where I'm going here. Doubtless there are diminishing returns but I should think with a few penetrators all on the same target you could eat through to the bunker.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Could we stop the comments on abstract issues and just stick to the concrete one.
It's always hard to know if money is well spent or not but a good question or two to ask is: What are the consequences of not spending it vs the consequences of spending it and not needing it
If you think we've got it bad, imagine how they feel.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Mare tits? Kinky.
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 !
Conventional bombing? Silliness!
When you have aerosol drones capable of dispensing enough biological agents to render that entire side of the world extinct of human life, knit picking about resilient concrete is the least of anyone's worries. America, just keep taking your "flu shots".
I find the concrete tech fascinating though. I wonder what it would do for the roads? We seriously need to talk to them, because we need to spend the next decade working on our own hi-ways before they crumble under us. We could use more rails to save road traffic from trucks as well. Infrastructure, people! We need to improve it!
Take the Red Pill.
There is no limit to the clever ways we invent to destroy ourselves.
Hell, they could put a nuke in a train, and drive the train right into the middle of the white house; then detonate it.
Maybe they could get Bruce Lee to drive the train, jump out right before it hit, and rip the pres' heart right out of his chest and show it to him before he dies.
Once you take that little step into insane, there is no point in coming up short.
Iran needs everything it can to defends itself. note that the puppet EU organization has collaborated with the pro-war activists (i.e. criminals responsible for Iraq) again in this issue. the oil and central banking sanctions are a disgrace. we shouldn't be attacking a country like that. fuck that EU which is turning its constituent countries into financial dictatorships. fuck NATO, the umbrella puppet of the US military forces.
I could write something better, but I'm tired and this is slashdot.
Pretty much everyone has known for quite awhile how to make super-hard concrete. Both the USA and USSR used it to make missile silo covers in the 1950s, and improvements on that recipe gave us silos able to withstand 2000 psi in the 70s. The recipes aren't difficult for UHPC - it's really a quality-control issue with just a little tinkering to get the recipe and pour right.
The new interesting concretes are not for hardness, but flexibility. Only a moron would use quartz for this kind of application - synthetic fibers in the mix seem to be the way to go, with some change in the types and geometrics of gravel used as the aggregate (including replacing it with funky star-cut composites). To earthquake resistance, you don't want a more rigid (and hard) concrete, you want one which will flex without cracking.
I don't doubt that Iran has been using the super-hard stuff for various military facilities, though I doubt they've got the good quality-control needed to have the 2000 psi stuff done right. Still, 500 psi stuff (5x better than 'average') is Good Enough for most things. I also wouldn't be surprised if they're trying to get into the more advanced flex-crete business, though I seriously doubt they've got the materials science industry to make serious headway on that.
And, the primary problem with Iran having a bomb isn't having them use it on Israel. Or the Saudis, or anyone else. Nope, Iran itself wouldn't actually use it one anyone; rather, it's the decent probability that they might just "loan" or "lose" one to one of the myriad of truly crazy real terrorist organizations they sponsor. Those people will use it on someone. That's been the big issue with the Pakistani nukes for two decades - not so much that Pakistan might nuke someone (even India), but that the lax controls the Pakistanis have on their nukes might result in one or more of them going walkabout. That risk is even bigger with Iran, and something I don't think can be tolerated.
That said, the current path of sanctions and diplomacy to get the Iranian leadership on-board with IAEA inspections again and giving up the weaponization programs (which are in low-gear, not overdrive) seems to be working fine. There's no need to bomb anyone at this point. We're a couple of years away from really having to do that, at the worst-case scenario. So the Israelis need to just shut their mouths again, and recognize that the USA and Israel's best interest (not to mention the Saudis, Turks, and most of the region's) interests are all aligned here with making sure that Iran doesn't actually get the bomb.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
Iran has earthquakes? You learn something new everything.
On another note, I wish we'd stop playing hero. Nobody seems to be buying it, and it's getting expensive.
Now cement is dangerous? "experts" are worried!
OK, Iran is an evil sexist country with a lot of political problems being handled poorly. Not a country I'd ever live in.
But guys? Can you really afford another war? You hardly finished in Iraq - you'll be doing it again in twenty years. You're doing worse in Afghanistan!
Let them have the damn cement, it sounds like they could really use it anyway. So could we, actually.
Just let this one go, try to devise a long term plan to improve relations over time - its has to be cheaper and frankly couldn't be worst then ranting about ways you'll kill them even if they do hide in these possible bunkers.
Its a bit insane sounding. Imagine being from Iran reading these paranoid threats?
Canadian for the record, but we are generally loyal to even our loud, obnoxious, untrustworthy friends to the south.
"Computers will never truly be free until the last windows user is strangled with the entrails of the last mac user."
Iran is not an Arab nation. Its population is Caucasian, and is non Arab,
although it is a Moslem country.
It is the cradle of civilization, a beautiful country despite the US Propaganda that
makes it look like a pile of rubble, stones and mud huts. It has a high degree of
education, many fine universities and research institutes and takes foreingn aid
from no one.
Iran has never invaded any other country, and as far as I know they have never
lifted a finger at the USA. Other than shooting down our million-dollar drones
that violate their airspace.
Sure. But are they America proof?
Ideas are powerful.
For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. - Publius
If you're not familiar with MEMRI, this article puts it in context:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/aug/12/worlddispatch.brianwhitaker
They've an Israeli run translation 'Research Institute' that translates selective news stories from Israels enemies, designed to emphasize the worst aspects of those countries in western media.
So a typical example will translate some extremist religious nuts comments, but not the people calling him a fringe crazy. Thus you get the impression of Israels enemies as all extremist nuts and thus are more likely to continue the $3 billion a year in donations you make to Israel.
As some comments above have pointed out, the media as of late (well, probably always) has taken a really bias view of this Iran vs. US thing, to the point that.. I don't really know what to think.
In my quest to find less bias opinions, I turned to al-jazeera and other arab news sources to view comments from those who refer to Isreal as the "evil zionist regime." While many comments were ludicrous (but perhaps no more ludicrous than pro-US comments on CNN or something), there were many who pointed out that the US and Isreal have been known to carry out assassinations in Iran and other countries with basic impunity.
The question posed was, if Iran assassinated a scientist or politician in the United States, what kind of blow-back would there be? Why is the US/Isreal allowed to carry these out events without any world condemnation?
It's a difficult topic, because as much as I believe the US is going about things in the wrong way, if there's going to be someone who is the "world police" and the global power, I would prefer the US to any other country. Yet, it is clearly shielding the public from the double-standards it holds. Why does nobody else (general public) notice this? It's weird.
News for nerds ?
Stuff that matters ?
Is this from the propanganda dept of slashdot ?
....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.
I'm a Brit so I was [thankfully] unaware of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) another piece of paranoid alphabet soup. However these boys [for I expect they are mainly boys] really need to read the Zap Gun: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zap_Gun or just go directly to the cited source, The Blue Cephalopod Man from Titan. I know the arms race is fun, but it 2012, me might start moving beyond that, at some stage.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
The Onion's irreverent piece: Iran Worried U.S. Might Be Building 8,500th Nuclear Weapon.
It's the soft squishy parts that are the real targets, and no amount of concrete can prevent them from suffering the concussive force of a large blast... even if the building stays mostly intact.
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
And people are afraid of Iran creating nuclear weapons when we should also be very afraid about the US for creating such devestating devices (and especially a country which still creates nuclear devices and have proven to actually use them (and made a LOT of innocent victums (by direct hit, and later due to the radiation) with that action which wasn't even necessary to begin with)..
I'm not for Iran having nuclear weapons (far from it), but if other countries (like the US, France and israel) still are making/having them, then I must admit that Iran has just as much right for having them as the countries telling them they cannot. Those countries are just a bunch of hypocrits when it comes to such things..
Samzenpus, I may be a nerd or a geek. I still would like to be taken serious, as an audience, and be able to read at least two different viewpoints upon the same news item. Lardering a contribution with exactly one source is, at the best, amateuristic.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Robot snakes?
Aren't laser sharks not used any more?
You are a whore. We wish you ill. Go spam 4chan.
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
Imagine if they used their technology for good. Like to protect people from earthquakes ... oh wait!
Weapon of Mass Defense? ;-)
gee... we have only had them since world war two, maybe you should pay more attention, then you would be less worried
Well, no you didn't.
The ancestors of todays bunker busters were invented by the Brits - Barnes Wallis in fact.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
It's a typical situation: a man, a stash and another man after that stash.
The rule is - never go after the stash, always go after the man.
Why bomb the facilities while you can go after leadership?
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
They didn't make Bam out of it.
"Weekly Iran war propaganda, brought to you by Slashdot! Were the world needs another war! "
Too sad what /. has become, where is the world is Malda??? Geek stuff?
Get my e-mail after a captcha test in: http://tinymailt
...can it make roads that don't self destruct every winter?
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
The consensus is that Iran has not made any decision to build a bomb.
This may sound incredible because this kind of statements only is made in a low key fashion so they are mostly going unnoticed.
Sometimes they appear as little throwaway lines in articles with a general thrust that is always very anti-Iran.
Panetta, Dempsey, Clapper, and in Israel Barak, Dagan, Pardo are on record as confirming this.
It is becoming more visible because of the current tension between those pushing for war and those trying to avoid it.
Panetta on CBS news. Odd inconsistency in his tough talk about Iran.
www.cbsnews.com/8301-3460_162-57354647/face-the-nation-transcript-january-8-2012/
Israeli intelligence report
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-iran-still-mulling-whether-to-build-nuclear-bomb-1.407866
Barak
http://consortiumnews.com/2012/01/19/israel-tamp-down-iran-war-threats/
Even the NYTimes has picked up on it now.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/22/world/middleeast/in-din-over-iran-echoes-of-iraq-war-news-analysis.html?_r=3
Now it's always possible that Iran goes as far as possible within the NPT limits and then suddenly locks the IAEA out and starts making a bomb. It is always possible with every nuclear capable country. But that would be a very visible and costly move. And there is no indication they want to take that step. The assessment can be colored a bit "still mulling creating a bomb", but all that is behind it is there is no intent. It's not as if they're on the edge of taking a decision.
If you are going to rip off The Economist wholesale, please include in your submission at least an acknowledgment of the original source beyond merely the URL of the originating site. It's only polite.
Uh, "if it looks roughly mouse-shaped according to my infra-red sensitive pit, eat it"? --Chris Burke 09-08-10
Logical fallacies are strictly fallacies only when the premises are completely known. A lot of fallacies are derived from heuristics that people use when they have incomplete knowledge of the premises, and in this case, the government is known to classify key premises as official secrets. So let me rephrase falsus in uno more rigorously: The probability that a statement is false given circumstances where other statements have proven false is greater than the probability that a statement is false given no such circumstances.
It's unlikely spying is a real rational concern for Iran,
WTF? Don't be ridiculous.
It's about the capability it provides. Can they for example deliver a nuclear warhead to Europe? They claim about 2000km, just short of Europe but that is probably a deliberate underestimate. You do not want people knowing your capabilities, you want them overconfident, underestimating you.
So if they do attack you, you can drop a conventional missile on top of Rome, and mention that the next one will be nuclear. You do not want them believing you have the capability to hit their cities knowing you have a nuclear programme in the works. That invites preemptive attack. If they know you don't have nuclear weapons that threat is ineffective and you get invaded.
It's absolutely crucial that your opponents not know your capabilities one way or another.
Deleted
There are two possible options on this topic: a) Iran wants to build an A-bomb b) Iran wants only to use nuclear energy and have the option to build a bomb.
If is is option (b) we could stop worrying about attacks on Israel and other countries in the region. then the Iranians only have the same stupid nuclear waste disposal problem. And we could try to help them there.
If it is option (a) then the situation is a little different. An Iran with a fair number of nukes and missiles would be able to eliminate any neighboring country in a first strike. This situation will make other countries in the region very nervous. When they attack Israel, which has its own nukes, they could cause the total destruction of Israel. However, Israel has the capability for a second strike. If there is any doubt in that, the US, the UK and France could support that capabilities by providing support with their nuclear arsenals.
That would result in the following situation (between Israel and Iran). Iran could destroy Israel. However, it will be destroyed just 20 minutes later. Therefore Iran cannot win that situation. They could commit suicide, yes, but I do not believe that the Mullahs want to destroy Iran. This results in an situation where the Iran cannot be attacked with conventional weapons by its neighbors and it cannot attack Israel. What is missing is a way to provide similar protection to other middle east countries so they do not have to develop their own nuclear weapons.
They developed concrete which could be used to build better bunkers and 1000 other things which can profit from it. This concrete will allow the Iranians to kill us all with their mid-range missiles. True those only are sufficient to hit Israel which would then retaliate with their own nukes on their own missiles proudly mounted on German submarines. So that would mean suicide for Iran, but they are fanatics, aren't they?
Honestly! They have to fear the US or Israel much much more than the other way round.
If we want a regime change in that country, then we should not support the government. However, when we need an enemy ready all the time, like Saddam Hussein, then we should wave our arms and cry wolf. And if it doesn't work very well, then we hit them in the face even kill some Iranians. That will keep them angry and the Mullahs and radicals (like their president) in charge.
To be fair, when your president has said publicly that he wants to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, that sort of diminishes your points considerably.
Perhaps it was just a West propaganda translation error and what he really said was "I wish we could all be happy and coexist. Fluttershy is my favorite pony!"
The liars at the pentagon (where they loose trillions in $$$$ often in clerical errors) had all the high tech to know Saddam had zero WMD, but went in any way.
If america wants to rape you and get praised, they will do so.
Now earth, bend over, for the 12 million incher.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Whoever wrote this doesn't know much about focused kinetic energy or explosives. The only thing that defeats modern bunker busters is just more bunker. The penetration we are talking about is amazing and the energy transfer is like talking about Trillions of dollars... people have no real frame of reference. Plus... you don't always have to actually make it completely through a bunker to inflict material and personnel casualties.