Translucent Concrete
Posted on January 14th, 2008 in Photos/Videoes, Science!, Time Wasters, Tech News |
Random info for the day. People have translucent concrete. Its not CLEAR….but still pretty cool. When they make the concrete, optic fiber is somehow set into the concrete so that light can pass from one side. The other side though, is fully opaque. One can imagine a concrete dome that is sunlit, and yet solid from the outside. The company claims that the optical fibers are only 4%, and allows concrete to keep its stability. As io9 puts it…that supposedly means that “Pretty light shine through, house not fall down”
I can’t really see anything *groundshaking* pop up from this development, but it would make for an interesting experience to be able to roughly see outside through concrete 
Check out the pics on io9
2 Responses
I could actually see a lot of uses for this material. Imagine parking garages built with translucent walls. You’d be able to cut the number of lights needed during the day. Highway overpasses might not have to create such heavy and deep shadows. Imagine new types of concrete dome housing - the entire house could be translucent, getting rid of the need for internal lighting during the day, but still providing strong, durable (maybe hurricane-proof?) housing. Imagine stone walls where the wall glows around the stones during the day. . . .There’s so much you could do with this, as both an artistic material, and a useful technological innovation.
Really cool idea - imagine a dam built out of this material, where you could see all the water being held back behind it. . . that would be fun.