Concrete Products in the Course of Time
Concrete products have been manufactured for over 160 years. Concrete roof tiles and other concrete products (earlier called cement products) were manufactured by the casting method with Roman cement already before Portland cement was invented. A following step was manufacture of cast-cement pipes from very soft concrete, without compaction, which was a forerunner of self-compacting concrete. It is noteworthy that in the development years of cement application in Germany, the manufacture of concrete products played a prominent role as pacemaker for the introduction of concrete as a construction product. Among the most important concrete products were railroad sleepers, pumice planks, roof tiles, hollowcore floor slabs, gravestones, hollow blocks, guideposts, crash barriers, masonry blocks, slabs, pipes, stair steps, and animals troughs.
Some of the products listed above are now no longer or only rarely manufactured. Ongoing innovation by manufacturers, however, has meant development of many new products – paving blocks, for example. They enable aesthetic, functional, and ecological shaping of our environment. This is not the context for comprehensive presentation of the very broad spectrum of this fascinating development, with the result that the following article is by no means a complete and full survey.
Historical Review of Concrete Products
Factory-made concrete products, originally manufactured by the “casting method”...