More than 100 schools and public buildings in the UK were identified as having autoclaved cellular concrete (RAAC) in poor condition. “It’s the famous chocolate cement”, describes Adrian Tagg (associate professor of building surveying at Reading University), in reference to the well-known Aero chocolates, which have air bubbles in the middle. “This concrete, used since World War II, mainly because it is cheaper and easier to use, is not a danger in itself, but, like all materials, it has a useful life span”.
Unfortunately, for the population of the United Kingdom and also for the population of almost the entire Planet, those individuals, who run for and are elected to political positions and make decisions about public works, share among them a very peculiar characteristic: their brain is absolutely unable to understand the concept of useful life span. And it was because of this that in Italy, just 5 years ago, the Morandi bridge, which was not built with the so-called "chocolate" cement, reached the end of its (useful) life, taking with it the lives of four dozen people. lives of Italian citizens.
I therefore hope that the scientific community can fully explain why politicians' brains are absolutely incapable of understanding the concept of useful life. Who knows, perhaps part of the explanation lies in that study by researchers from the universities of Oxford and Loughborough, which showed that certain academic training, such as those attended mostly by politicians, exhibited a reduction in a critical brain chemical, γ-aminobutyric acid, which is fundamental for reasoning. and problem-solving https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2013155118#sec-5
PS - A few months ago, more precisely on June 13th, I published a post on this blog about the aforementioned Morandi bridge. This post was titled "ChatGPT teaches how to design a concrete capable of lasting 1000 years" https://19-pacheco-torgal-19.blogspot.com/2023/06/chatgpt-teaches-how-to-design-concrete.html
