Ferro
cement:
Ferro cement, also referred to as Ferro concrete or
reinforced concrete, a mixture
of
Portland cement and sand
applied over layers of woven or expanded steel mesh and closely spaced
small-diameter steel rods
rebar. It can be used to form relatively thin,
compound-curved sheets of concrete ideal for such applications as
hulls for boats, shell roofs,
and water tanks. It has a wide range of other uses including sculpture and
prefabricated building components. The term "Ferro cement" has been
applied by extension to other
composite materials, including
some containing no cement and no ferrous material.
The original inventor of the material, Frenchman
Joseph
Monier, dubbed it "cement armé," but after another French
inventor,
Joseph-Louis Lambot,
constructed a small ferrocement boat and exhibited the vessel at the
Exposition Universally
in 1855, the name "ferciment" (in accordance with Lambot's 1855
patent) stuck instead. The patent was granted in Belgium and only applied to
that country. At the time of Monier's first patent, July 1867, he planned to
use his material to create urns, planters, and cisterns. These implements were
traditionally made from
ceramics, but large-scale,
kiln-fired projects were expensive and prone to failure. In 1875, he expanded
his patents to include bridges and designed his first steel-and-concrete
bridge. The outer layer was sculpted to mimic rustic logs and timbers, thereby
also ushering
Faux
Bois concrete into common practice.
Recent trends have "ferrocement" being referred to as ferro
concrete or
reinforced concrete to better
describe the end product instead of its components. By understanding that
aggregates mixed with
Portland
cement form
concrete, but many things can
be called
cement,
it is hoped this may avoid the confusion of many compounds or techniques that
are not Ferro concrete.
Ferro concrete has relatively good strength and resistance to impact. When
used in house construction in developing countries, it can provide better
resistance to fire, earthquake, and corrosion than traditional materials, such
as wood, adobe and stone masonry. It has been popular in developed countries
for yacht building because the technique can be learned relatively quickly,
allowing people to cut costs by supplying their own labor. In the 1930s through
1950's, it became popular in the United States as a construction and
sculpting
method for
novelty architecture, examples
of which created "
dinosaurs in the desert".