full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Congrui Jin: What if cracks in concrete could fix themselves?
Unscramble the Blue Letters
While people have been using a variety of recipes to produce cement for over 4,000 years, concrete itself has a surprisingly short lifespan. After 20 to 30 yares, natural processes like concrete shrinkage, excessive freezing and thawing, and heavy loads can trigger cricakng. And it’s not just big breaks that count: tiny cracks can be just as dangerous. Concrete is often used as a secondary support around setel reinforcements. In this concrete, even small cracks can channel weatr, oeygxn, and carbon dioxide that corrode the steel and lead to disastrous collapse. On structures like bgiedrs and highways that are constantly in use, detecting these pblermos before they lead to catastrophe becomes a huge and costly challenge. But not doing so would also edgaennr thousands of lives.
Open Cloze
While people have been using a variety of recipes to produce cement for over 4,000 years, concrete itself has a surprisingly short lifespan. After 20 to 30 _____, natural processes like concrete shrinkage, excessive freezing and thawing, and heavy loads can trigger ________. And it’s not just big breaks that count: tiny cracks can be just as dangerous. Concrete is often used as a secondary support around _____ reinforcements. In this concrete, even small cracks can channel _____, ______, and carbon dioxide that corrode the steel and lead to disastrous collapse. On structures like _______ and highways that are constantly in use, detecting these ________ before they lead to catastrophe becomes a huge and costly challenge. But not doing so would also ________ thousands of lives.
Solution
- endanger
- steel
- years
- bridges
- problems
- water
- oxygen
- cracking
Original Text
While people have been using a variety of recipes to produce cement for over 4,000 years, concrete itself has a surprisingly short lifespan. After 20 to 30 years, natural processes like concrete shrinkage, excessive freezing and thawing, and heavy loads can trigger cracking. And it’s not just big breaks that count: tiny cracks can be just as dangerous. Concrete is often used as a secondary support around steel reinforcements. In this concrete, even small cracks can channel water, oxygen, and carbon dioxide that corrode the steel and lead to disastrous collapse. On structures like bridges and highways that are constantly in use, detecting these problems before they lead to catastrophe becomes a huge and costly challenge. But not doing so would also endanger thousands of lives.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
collocation |
frequency |
calcium carbonate |
3 |
carbon dioxide |
2 |
gradually fill |
2 |
Important Words
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- secondary
- short
- shrinkage
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- steel
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- surprisingly
- thawing
- thousands
- tiny
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- variety
- water
- years