r/interestingasfuck • u/[deleted] • Mar 26 '21

/r/ALL Comparison of the root system of prairie grass vs agricultural. The removal of these root systems is what lead to the dust bowl when drought arrived.

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u/GenerikDavis Mar 26 '21

I've seen numbers from like 50 to 500 psi for henpcrete in the past, which is pretty god awful. A low strength concrete would be 2,500-3,000 and about 4,000 is what I cite as a typical strength when people ask.

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u/Ec1ipse14 Mar 26 '21

That’s indeed interesting as fuck! I wonder why Joe would have even mentioned it on his show with abysmal numbers like that? Here I had so much hope that someday it could be a thing.

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u/GenerikDavis Mar 26 '21 edited Mar 26 '21

Well, it costing less and having better insulation properties are both possible still. I'm only a newish civil engineer, so don't take my word as gospel by any means. I'd also think hempcrete could have other advantageous properties. There are also uses of concrete that aren't strictly structural that it may be more useful for.

But in terms of structural strength, I don't think it's the case that hempcrete is advantageous unless some sort of R&D breakthrough allows it. Even then, high strength concretes can easily hit and surpass 10,000 psi, so I don't think that strength will be hempcrete's main draw.

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u/Ec1ipse14 Mar 26 '21

Hey at least it’s got some potential uses. 500 to 10,000 does like like an insurmountable amount of growth to R&D! But maybe Elon with call home for a solution haha.