Advanced Cement Composites

(Wilfried Ellmer) #1

To get a general idea how light and high in the water that kind of structures float watch the video of a small test piece floating on the water surface.

Due to the cement binder in the composite structure you have the optical apperance of a rock .
You also get the UV light resistance and the corrosion resistance of rock (concrete).
Which points at a service livespan of 200 years and a life expectance of more than 2000 years.
But you can build it to a very different weight which becomes obvious when you watch the flotation line in the video above.

The weight of the build is the average of the “concrete in the cell walls and the air that is contained in the cell volume”

How light you can build it depends rather on the skills of the builder than the properties of the material.

Nature has perfected this way of making light and tough structures for the marine ambient for millions of years.

For human engineering this is a relative new field that goes way beyond the building of concrete columns and slabs in a simple cast process .

What we developed in the oceanic business alliance is a process that mimiks biology we have construction methods that allow to add ultralight building cells in any direction at any time to a existing structure. So the structure becomes like a living organism it can grow almost inperceptible cell by cell while life and business goes on. What we are used to in engineering that there is a construction phase and then people and business move into the finished building becomes completly obsolete. Our seasteads will grow for ever in the way and rithm life in them requires it.

You can imagine our floating city almost like a termite nest - people live in it - repair it and expand it all the time. If a Draupner wave breaks the structure in two pieces each of the pieces floats like a foamblock .

We are more in the business of “developing revolutionary construction technologies” that solve the technology bottleneck of seasteading than into the “politics of seasteading” this is where our project differs most from other projects mentioned here.

We figure out how to build New-Venice and New-Atlantis, we already have built the test pieces that do the convincing and are in the process to have the phase 1 conversation with visionary investors who are willing to join our project.

We have already built some revolutionary stuff and we keep doing so …

Visualize humans living in a “Termite Nest City” a cellular structure something like this…irregular hollow tubular and cellular pieces forming an integrated and continously growing structure…

Unlike land buildings this structure can survive Draupner impacts, built from the materials in the video above it is absolute unsinkable.

Modular Extension | Connectors | Cellular expansion | Building Technology
(Wilfried Ellmer) #2

Incredible light and tough structures can be built in advanced cement composite technology - the material is free of corrosion lasts for ever in marine ambient what forms a solid base for oceanic real estate and the big real estate shift . In the Oceanic Aquaculture thread it was also mentioned that those advanced cement composites can be built EXACTLY weight neutral in sea water what makes this ideal for building fish cages for the comming age of aquaculture in the open ocean.

(Wilfried Ellmer) #3

In the context of forming big continuous structures in freeforming that can be expanded without modules and connectors - what is happening in the universe of projected concrete is worth to be mentioned.

Here you have the seperation of fiber component (rebar) and cement/aggregate component …

The methods that create the underwater tunnels and swimming pools of today lead naturally to the methods that create the floating cities of New-VENICE and New-Atlantis of tomorrow.
In the Oceanic Business Alliance we believe in the "natural evolution" of things. What will be here and big tomorrow is already under development in some special niches today...
Those of the audience who have followed my discourse over the years know that among our technology pilot projects are fully functional submarines built from advanced cement composites. So it is reasonable to accept the working theory that building a "floating island" is a relative simple task for our group.

Once you leave the universe of simple cast concrete engineering - shapes and possibilities become literally limitless…

The whole idea that making things boxy and angular in modules that are bolted together - is probably just a lack of imagination and a lack of knowledge what is “out there and working fine already” …

The legacy of Zaha Hadid is in inviting us to “think beyond the box”… and coded engineering.

(Wilfried Ellmer) #4

In the context of “projected concrete and advanced composites” you should also have a look on what was published by @Elwar back in 2015 in this thread especially the last video shows how a “surface film” can “vastly change” the overall property of a piece.

You can take a surface film as a "fiber component" introduced at the end of the build...
The fiber component in a composite does not have to be mixed in - it can be performed in layers and independent of the cement and the filler components.

watch a man “walk on water” with the help of a sprayed polyurea film…

• what can you do with a polyurea sheet sprayed on the watersurface for a mile or so…in a contiuous process by a floating fabrication site ? (check how Solitaire does pipe laying to get the picture of a floating factory building oceanic infrastructure…)

• When combining 2 materials right you can make a watertank out of a cardbox … it is not about the specifics of materials - it is about the surprising properties that emerge if you COMBINE them.

• In advanced composite materials it is not about the material per se it is about the Builder getting it right.

• Building in advanced composite materials is rather an artform that requires a deep understanding and know how from the builders … so building logistics is one of the reasons why we don´t see it implemented frequently on large scale already. - The other reason is “pre-coded construction ambients” that exclude new things by default as non-code-conform.

It is the code free ambient of seasteads that allow “free choice of options” that will liberate the power of those technologies on larger scale.

Another surprising composite tech…unite modules with a film component and “unbrittle a brick”…

This is ONE method how you avoid CONNECTORS…

(Larry G) #5

Polyurea is great. It’s not used for connections. And it doesn’t keep the underlying brick from shattering. It superficially holds it in place, and it does make it a little tougher against random small impacts. But once it exceeds its impact tolerance, it is no longer structurally sound. You couldn’t put weight or shear stress to it.

I do think there is something to the idea of laminate layers- for substances that self-adhere after cure.

What happens when someone steps onto a plastic swimming pool cover?

(Wilfried Ellmer) #6

Consider it rather the consistance of a 7 cm sheet of ice - a man can step on it… and don´t get me wrong the above examples are not my “suggestion how to build a seastead” they are examples for how in composite materials new properties emerge by combining 2 (or more materials) - and how these new properties can be VERY DIFFERENT from the properties one of the materials has on its own without combination.

Just think in carbon fiber pieces - their mechanical properties are certainly not that of “coal”…

It is not about poly-urea or carbon fiber - or basalt - or geopolymer - to choose above everything else - it is not a "either or" it is a "all together" - there are literally hundreds of materials that can be combined to composite materials with surprising properties - just look at the floating rock in the video above.

(Larry G) #7

Agreed. But it’s more than the chemical, physical materials properties. The shape matters a whole lot too. In your surface sheet example, you could make a buoyant enough sheet to support considerable weight spread over a large area, could make it pretty tough to puncture, but the shape is still an issue because spray over the edge and rain will still accumulate. I know this is a thought experiment, not a design. What I’m pointing out is that we are constrained by both materials characteristics AND by design characteristics to a finite number of combinations. Even more so when we add the element of cost.

(Wilfried Ellmer) #8

Yes that is the point. The things you can do are more or less limitless and only restricted by the power of imagination of the builder.

Here in Colombia for example we have a material called Guadua . In your country they call it Bamboo.

People make rafts out of it - imagine it in combination whith sprayed polyurea sheets and the light rock material in the video above - it is quite obvious that you can do a lot of interesting things with that, when it comes to working on the watersurface, and make a first construction layer on it.

Althogh these natural segmented tubes have at least the toughness and strength of a similar sized aluminium tube - they are obviously not "code conform".
Do i now suggest to make a seastead out of bamboo ? Not really - but what the example does is showing that your selection and cost of materials you can consider to use in your composite structures also widley depends on your local supply situation . ( Guadua costs next to nothing here )
While you would consider a ice sheet as first construction layer in Canada (Habakkuk ice ship), you will consider a bamboo composite in the tropics.

In the “poor man´s floating island - project” we took a somewhat different approach of combining materials to a floating island of “lowest possible cost”, to give poor people floating homes in the floodplaines of the Magdalena river (Government investigation project). This approach depends on a form of “material supply” that is “non code conform” in your country, but very doable in other parts of the world from India to South America.

(Wilfried Ellmer) #9

Guadua is also an element that allows quick economic building of light domes as suggested in our “bubble cluster concept” …

It allows a concept where the “fiber component of the build” gives the form and at the same time it works as “scaffolding” for the workers to access the dome in construction… this is extremly smart and cost efficient - but not code conform…

(Wilfried Ellmer) #10

wooden cabin hidden in a rock made of sprayed concrete…not code conform… but still a interesting building technology.

If the sprayed material would be “extraordinaryly light” it is quite obvious that this opens new worlds for construction…


Floating Rock | Wilfried Ellmer Group |

Postulate: A floating city should be built out of something that allows the structure to still float, even if it gets filled with water. No modern safety certified ship hull can meet this criteria - but a seastead should .

At the Oceanic Business Alliance we commit to a building strategy that is taking the safest safety standard in use today, and approves on it - but it is still non code conform and needs the code free ambient of seasteading to be deployed.

Modular, Connectors, have been repaced by something far better - “ongoing limitless freeforming on the ocean surface”.

Poor man´s floating island | a experiment made with the government of Colombia to solve the issue of periodical flooding of villages on the shore of the Magdalena River.

Project objective : build a floating base that can carry a hut or a small house as economic and simple as it can get.
We selected the materials for this composit floating island specificly along those project criteria.

Outcome: USD 50/ squaremeter is within technology reach ... and room to go...

Could a Seastead be the first country to implement a Universal Basic Income?
(Larry G) #11

Lots of vessels float even if capsized or filled with water. It’s also one of the criteria in the concrete canoe contest.

Sailing vessels are designed to be righted by standing on the keel.

That doesn’t scale to live aboard size but the concept s out there.

Other vessels are designed to right themselves should they roll completely over. In these cases they are designed to keep the water mostly out while they roll. And then there are water tight internal bulkheads to prevent flooding inside the hull all at once. The ship has to be designed for the weight of a flooded compartment or two causing shear stress between flooded and unflooded compartments, of course.

(Wilfried Ellmer) #12


The concrete canoe competition is actually a very good example to point out -

• How the sistem works,
• Why it does not produce the rapid progress needed
• How things can be improved involving seasteading.

(I will dig in with pictures off forum at the link above)

(Larry G) #13

Well, being sponsored by Portland Cement producers, it’s inherently limited in materials possibilities.

(Wilfried Ellmer) #14


Sure this makes the Portland Cement (bonder) the only composite-component you can NOT change in the concrete canoe competition - those are their rules. This limits the “field of experimentation” a bit - no doubth.

On the other hand allow resin bonders like epoxy would blurr the awe and the reason of the “concrete canoe competition” and a “resin bonded canoe” would just be a “normal canoe” in all its aspects …

The idea of the concrete canoe competition is finally to show (to the jaw dropping average joe) what a “not code restricted” (first semester) engineer can do with portland cement - and “get a whow effect” on concrete (cement composite) construction.

(Matias Volco) #15

If we go that way we could just explain it as a gigantic surfboard! or unsinkable plastic kayak…

(Wilfried Ellmer) #16

In the | Building Barges Using Advanced Concrete Methods | - thread @Octavian postulated that building angular boxy shapes creates a cost advantage that is so big that it is worth to build the whole project around it , and @Talador refutes that, mentioning the hanging fabric forming method. (curvy shapes easy)

Similar to the guadua / bamboo dome method, the airform method, and many more, these method group of “curved shapes freeforming on the fly” allows rounded shapes to be performed easy.

Postulate: New building methods lead to new shapes . The floating bubble cluster city will take some of the building methods that are living in special niches like sculpture, amateur building, garden landscaping and make them mainstreem construction.


Artificial rock feature cement composite technology | garden landscaping art | floating rock |


Curvy interior design | advanced composite methods applied in a floating structure

Bubble Palace | a bubble cluster structure | combined dome shell structure | this kind of structure can reasonably be expected to stand a Draupner impact.

It is for good reasons that marine engineering when confronted with the question how to guarantee survival in extreme storms with the smallest possible living space - came up with this…the survival pod, it is designed to still float when the 200m steel ship that carries it is gone and lost in a violent storm.

As a structure the survival pod is kind of halfway between the two concepts of "ocean sphere" and "bubble cluster city"


Except that’s not a faux floating rock, but a very normal 54 ft yacht interior…


Prestressed Concrete was introduced in 1957. Making claims guaranteeing 200 - 2000 years for it, much less for it in any marine environmental application is a bit premature.

(Wilfried Ellmer) #19

As this is the building technology thread…

Another nice video of an example of a cement bonded composite material which has surprising properties that go beyond the properties of the parts it is made of…

The key here is not to use styrofoam in blocks encased in concrete - (what is a clumsy way of doing things), but integrate the two materials styrofoam and cement into a new material that has properties that are “quite desireable” for seasteading purposes. - Especially if we keep the goal of unsinkable in mind.

To start with it should be a fun project to use it as a sculpture material and form an Olmek head for the garden out of it…

PS…been there, done that …in the GaleriaC projects.

(Wilfried Ellmer) #20

An interresting approach to dot printing (take a brick as a dot ) and dome building…

Also a method that does not need connectors - the bonder is the connector…the key is in the bonder (here called mortar) it needs to be right to hold the stuff in place without forms (freeforming method).