How Strong Is Concrete? Hydraulic Press Test!

Thanks to Vabe / Rudus for providing the test samples for the video! It was super nice to be able to test this with official test samples and they also happened to fit our 150 ton machine really nicely! Also happy holidays to everyone! I am taking couple days of from the youtube so I am not super active on looking through the comments during this time.

I'm starting to wonder when they will get around to splitting the atom on this channel. It just seems like a logical progression.

That press is impressively durable. 8 years of exploding stuff in it and it still shows no signs of wearing out.

I keep wanting to say I can't believe this channel has 8.83 million subscribers, but I really can believe it after I watch because every crush is exciting as hell. It's like, universally entertaining.

The googly eyes and the faces are the best! Merry Christmas to you and yours!

The launch pad that Starship destroyed on the 1st launch attempt was made of concrete called Fondag. It would have been interesting to see that tested, too.

After all these years, I still love this channel and their videos! Also the final concrete's face was hilarious and explosion was awesome!

I am a concrete tester in Washington State USA. Watch your videos all the time! I was able to call within a thousand PSI what each of those were going to break at. 😂

Had friends who tested concrete samples for a living. They took two samples for each pour, and if the first one tested OK, the second one was surplus. We often used them as winter ballast in the truck or van, to help get around in ice and snow. Some house levelling companies use the left-over cores as piers, and some landscapers use them as edging.

My first job during high school was working at a concrete testing lab. Hired muscle and janitorial services. We cast 6 inch diameter by 12 inch long cylinders by the hundreds. Mixed a big batch and poured it into metal can molds. When cured we stripped the cans off and prepped each cylinder. Each end had to be perfectly flat to match the surfaces of the press; we used little pie pans that we poured liquid sulfur into, then set the cyl into it. When it was cooled we did the other end. When ready we picked a fair number of the batch at random eliminating any with big defects, and put them into the press, squeezed them till they popped. The press had a huge dial gauge and a needle that moved with the main needle to show the max pressure. Recorded that number, cleaned and reset the press and did the next. After all the readings the engineer would go and write up an official report certifying (or not) that batch of cement. The last part of my job was recovering any sulfur that was still clean and in good shape to use again. All the torn open cans, busted cement, and unused cylinders went into a huge dumpster. $10/hr for a high school kid in 1978 was pretty good. Backbreaking labor was not so fun.

Actually surprisingly interesting I personally hate working on concrete that has steel fibres embedded because it's a pain to drill into... Burns through concrete drill bits in no time!

I used to use these concrete cylinders to make shelves, instead of the ubiquitous cinder blocks… My mum used to work for an engineering testing lab. Most of them came home with poured sulphur caps that were added to even out the end pressure from the press anvils.

I'd like to see the other samples used to test their Shear Strength, particularly with and without fiber reinforcement.

This was a great one, well done!

10:45 "Hmm. That. went. well." I follow this channel for moments like that.

I would be curious to see what happens when you push a cylinder close to it's limit (say, within 10% of the breaking point measured in the current video), then release the pressure, rest the cylinder, and repeat the test to see whether they will still shatter at about the same point, or actually got affected by being pushed to the limit once already.

Another type of strength contest: I wonder if shorter slices of the different samples could be combined into one mixed-stack sample. Also, providing a little outward tension by way of a large bearing ball might be fun -- hardness tester 5M. To heck with that, I hope you guys are able to enjoy a nice break and wind down from a chaotic year. Thank you for your uploads!

Please more videos with both of you I love the extra commentary

I love this episode! I did these tests in high school back in the 70’s. It was so much fun!

Good. Thanks. Merry Christmas.