When I first started inspecting, it was as a Special Inspector for a firm called Southern California Soils & Testing - perhaps the best people I have ever worked with. While there, I added multiple code certifications but worked primarily as a Pre-Stressed reinforced Concrete Inspector.
In short, I was a concrete nerd. I still am so I found this article in Popular Mechanics to be very interesting.
Most people go to France for the wine and the scenery. There is also a more concrete reason to go. When we heard that France had moved to the forefront of concrete technology, we decided to see for ourselves. So, while others were off to tour museums, and to sample cheese and taste country sausage, we went to look at concrete. What we found were new approaches for moving the venerable building material into the 21st century. They include improvements in ultra high performance concrete, a new type of stronger, self-leveling concrete and a technique for engraving designs onto concrete.
Ultra high performance concretes (UHPC) may not seem exciting, but they have the potential to change the way structures are designed and built. They are more flexible than regular concrete, need no passive steel reinforcement and have a tensile strength approaching that of steel. Another new line of concrete products, called Agilia, promises to speed the lead time for projects and combat a shortage of skilled labor. Finally, a unique aesthetic process similar to silk-screening makes it possible to transfer subtle and complex artwork onto concrete with up to 1 millimeter of accuracy.
Go read the article for more - it really is interesting.
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