President Trump is claiming the strikes “obliterated” three underground nuclear sites in Iran protected by military grade concrete. The truth may be more complicated.

Previously, a yield strength of 5,000 pounds per square inch (psi) was enough for concrete to be rated as “high strength,” with the best going up to 10,000 psi. The new UHPC can withstand 40,000 psi or more.

The greater strength is achieved by turning concrete into a composite material with the addition of steel or other fibers. These fibers hold the concrete together and prevent cracks from spreading throughout it, negating the brittleness. “Instead of getting a few large cracks in a concrete panel, you get lots of smaller cracks,” says Barnett. “The fibers give it more fracture energy.”

  • Buelldozer@lemmy.todayEnglish
    36·
    13 hours ago

    There’s also the fact that the majority of Iran’s nuclear facilities were built before UHPC, the concrete discussed in the article, was available!

    • Saleh@feddit.orgEnglish
      4·
      2 hours ago

      In the late 2000s, for instance, rumors circulated about a bunker in Iran struck by a bunker-buster bomb. The bomb had failed to penetrate—and remained embedded in—the surface of the bunker, presumably until the occupants called in a bomb-disposal team. Rather than smashing through the concrete, the bomb had been unexpectedly stopped dead. The reason was not hard to guess: Iran was a leader in the new technology of Ultra High Performance Concrete, or UHPC, and its latest concrete advancements were evidently too much for standard bunker busters.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordow_Fuel_Enrichment_Plant

      Construction on the facility started in 2006, but the existence of the enrichment plant was only disclosed to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by Iran on 21 September 2009,[6][7] after the site became known to Western intelligence services. Western officials strongly condemned Iran for not disclosing the site earlier;

      Seems to fall into the same timeframe.

    • Darrell_Winfield@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      11 hours ago

      I was suspicious of that as well, but I’m not knowledgeable enough on that subject to speak on it, so didn’t include it. But I doubt any country can build that extensive of a nuclear factory in so few years.