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AI for American-produced cement and concrete

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Re: AI for American-produced cement and concrete

#121

Post by pbmonster »

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #54
sidewndr46 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad to see someone pointed this out. The test consists of a bucket, plywood board & a stopwatch.

Hopefully there's good empirical data powering the model here, which just added slump prediction: > Alongside the event, Meta is releasing a new AI model for designing concrete mixes, Bayesian Optimization for Concrete (BOxCrete). BOxCrete improves over Meta’s previous models with more robustness to noisy data as well as new features including the ability to predict concrete slump (an important indicator of concrete…

> But perhaps still useful for planning, as a starting place?

Yeah, lots of value in just having an app go "the mix you're trying to do is likely to fail the slump test". So you still have time to adjust the water ratio, or get better sand.

Re: AI for American-produced cement and concrete

#122

Post by ainch »

toraway wrote: post #118
ainch wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Gaussian Processes underpinning this work are hardly a product of the 'AI Hype Machine' - they've been around for decades, have strong statistical underpinnings, and are being widely explored for experimental design across many disciplines. Reflexive and poorly-informed backlash to any variety of machine learning is no more productive than blindly hyping up LLMs.

Meta Platforms, Inc featuring this technology with a title announcing “AI for American-produced cement and concrete” is, on the other hand, 1000% a product of the AI Hype Machine.

Sure, it's clearly marketing. I think a private company pursuing marketing via open research with open source code (including datasets) is a good trade. A hypey blogpost + research is better than no blogpost and no research.

Re: AI for American-produced cement and concrete

#123

Post by modo_mario »

Tangential question:

Does anyone here have experience with or knowledge of diy wood ash cement? I produce a fair bit of ash. Often enough from hardwood or something close enough and keeping it and going trough the calcification process in the fireplace sounds easy enough. I wonder if I could produce enough for hobby projects and if it would hold up outside.

Re: AI for American-produced cement and concrete

#124

Post by bookofjoe »

munk-a wrote: post #69
Animats wrote: post #28

Hand-held devices for testing concrete properties would be more useful. Most concrete problems come from a bad mix - too much water, not enough cement, etc. Concrete testing usually involves cutting a core out of the poured slab and sending it to a lab. Something where you stick a probe in the mix and can reject it before pouring would help. Here are some on-site concrete testers.[1] They're heavy and a pain to use.…

> too much water, not enough cement, etc. I wanted to mention that Concrete is far more complex and regional than folks might imagine. The quality of gravel and sand, local impurities - these all contribute massively. It's probably best to think of it like a wine's terroir - except, unlike a bottle of wine, it's prohibitively expensive to ship both the components and the finalized mixture to different areas. If a reg…

>The Pantheon Dome: A Marvel of Ancient Roman Architecture

https://www.pantheonroma.com/en/2026/02/11/the-pantheon-dome...

>It remains the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world, a staggering achievement for an structure completed around 126 AD during the reign of Emperor Hadrian.

Re: AI for American-produced cement and concrete

#125

Post by emmelaich »

GorbachevyChase wrote: post #94
Animats wrote: post #28

Hand-held devices for testing concrete properties would be more useful. Most concrete problems come from a bad mix - too much water, not enough cement, etc. Concrete testing usually involves cutting a core out of the poured slab and sending it to a lab. Something where you stick a probe in the mix and can reject it before pouring would help. Here are some on-site concrete testers.[1] They're heavy and a pain to use.…

It’s customary to prefix these comments with credentials, so I’ll just say that I’m a roadway engineer. Sampling at the batch plant or even at the truck is not going to give you the whole story. While the most common crime of contractors is to overwater the concrete slurry to make it flowable, other problems in workmanship can arise from failing to vibrate the concrete in its forms, leaving voids, or vibrating it too…

Is the slump test still commonly used? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_slump_test

Re: AI for American-produced cement and concrete

#126

Post by gulfofamerica »

emmelaich wrote: post #125
GorbachevyChase wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s customary to prefix these comments with credentials, so I’ll just say that I’m a roadway engineer. Sampling at the batch plant or even at the truck is not going to give you the whole story. While the most common crime of contractors is to overwater the concrete slurry to make it flowable, other problems in workmanship can arise from failing to vibrate the concrete in its forms, leaving voids, or vibrating it too…

Is the slump test still commonly used? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_slump_test

[dead]

Re: AI for American-produced cement and concrete

#127

Post by sidewndr46 »

pbmonster wrote: post #121
jauntywundrkind wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully there's good empirical data powering the model here, which just added slump prediction: > Alongside the event, Meta is releasing a new AI model for designing concrete mixes, Bayesian Optimization for Concrete (BOxCrete). BOxCrete improves over Meta’s previous models with more robustness to noisy data as well as new features including the ability to predict concrete slump (an important indicator of concrete…

> But perhaps still useful for planning, as a starting place? Yeah, lots of value in just having an app go "the mix you're trying to do is likely to fail the slump test". So you still have time to adjust the water ratio, or get better sand.

That's the job of whatever engineer writes the spec. for the concrete. If they can't get that right, they apparently have failed to learn anything from decades of engineering literature.
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