March 18, 2004

• This could be an important boost for the concept of underground cities. Very cool.
• Not sure how much I like the idea of underground cities, but what this could do for modern poured concrete architecture is very cool.
• That looks like it could be used to excellent effect. Nice find, dhruva.
• Very interesting. I would really like to see an entire structure made of this material. Would come close to being like a glass house, or perhaps those Japanese paper wall buildings.
• what an incredible discovery....thanks dhruva. i'm already trying to think how to implement it into my ever evolving house renovations. i wonder how long it will take before it's commercially available.
• wow! very cool! at first it sounds like an urban legend. we live in an amazing age.
• dxlifer: the LiTraCon site says end of 2004. You'll post before and after pix, right? We just bought our first house in August. My spouse is gonna love this. Thanks dhruva!
• Nice!
• That's purty.... Wonder how the price compares to normal concrete.
• neat-o. I wonder if the glass can be dyed, so you get large stained glass concrete?
• Hmm. I wonder how it affects teh structural integrity, having all those fibers running in parallel - I could imsagine that causing shearing problems in earthquake zones.
• I wonder if it's one-way only.
• Wow. Wouldn't just have to be about underground cities; it'd be super-cool for anybody who wanted to do something like this. Stained-glass concrete is a wonderful idea too, boo.
• It's not just one way, path. That's one of the potential disadvantages, depending on where you place your lights. Strictly speaking, rodgerd, it's not necessary to have the fibers running in parallel inside the concrete. That's the easiest way to make it, I'm sure, but you could make the fibers run any which way. If you wanted to, you could even mix up the start and end points of the fibers so that it made a reverse image of any shadows going across it, or a mixed-up puzzle pattern, or rotated it 90 degrees, or whatever.
• Non-reinforced concrete already doesn't have a lot of shear strength. Maybe these would be reinforced with fiber mesh instead of steel.
• He actually says:

  “Thousands of optical glass fibers form a matrix and run parallel to each other between the two main surfaces of every block,”

  which is why I was assuming they'd be in parallel; perhaps he's just chucking them in and relying on enough being in parallel to get light through. Of course, now that I think about it, you should still be able to run reinforcing rods through, since bending the glass fibers around the rods isn't going to stop them transmitting light.
• Great. Now I'll have to get curtains for my entire house.
• This is more like glass with concrete in it, rather than the other way around. I don't see how this is really that different from current glass blocks on the market. It didn't mention if it was less expensive, or even stronger, but I would assume those to be it's main benefits over regular glass blocks. It does not look like a replacement for concrete, rather, another type of decorative block to put in concrete. One of the main reasons for concrete's popularity is that you can mix it onsite, (or nearby) and pour it where you want it. Very fast, and very efficient. And it is very cheap. Blocks like these ones would have to be shiped to the site, and then further work is required to place them, just like bricks. Not cheap or particularly efficient.
• Wow!! This WAS totally fantastic until zenon completely burst my bubble. Dammit.
• Actually zenon pre-cast concrete structures are quite popular and cost efficient especially when your concrete is load bearing as these blocks claim to be, so depending on the size of blocks required and the applicaton they are quite an intriguing concept. (inflates Darshons bubble again) I passed this article around the office (I work for a General Contractor so concrete is a popular topic here) and it even perked the interest of some of the Old Dogs who don't particularly take well to new ideas.
• Glass block is not a structural load-bearing material. LitraCon, allegedly, is.
• Oh! Thank you, thank you, squeak.
• True, true. It is fantastic. I didn't mean to deflat anything: in my head I was hoping for onsite mix- and was thinking about how the product was framed: as concrete with glass, rather than the other way around. I jumped right from wow to: where can I use this, and can I afford it. I'm not thinking about how long I'll have to wait to actually see some. The blocks appear to be rather small in the pictures: that's what got me going in the direction of the glass blocks. Even bricks that aren't shipped over from a special manufactorer cost quite a bit to put up, as they require more labor. And most prefab isn't shipped far, that stuff is heavy. I want giant blocks made down the street. And is it really is to much to expect a new magic mix at the local (transnational corporation) hardware shop that lets me make see through load bearing wall action? I say no way.
• uh. deflate. didn't want to deflate. or deflat. uh. manu what? erm. uh. i'm going now. g'night.
• So when is my clear steel coming? Isn't everything in Star Trek suposed to come true? But, seriously, as someone who has grown up in buildings based on concrete blocks - this could be a god send. Imagine a house in which entire walls glowed gently. The translucency means you still have privacy, but more natural light. No replacement for windows of course, but certainly could brighten up your basement.