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It is an undeniable fact, that concrete is the most widely used building material, a material which has literally marked the 20th century.The reports on use of concrete are dated back to the antiquity as it was discovered that mortars and concrete were used by Egyptians, Greeks, in Mesopotamia and elsewhere, while the Romans were using pozzolana as a conjunctive material in order to make plenty of works from concrete, such as aqueducts, stadiums and many thousands kilometres of streets. However, the real explosion of concrete takes place in the 20th century and, in Greece specifically in the mid ‘50s with the explosion of the building activity. As the oldest remember and all of us have probably seen in old films or photographs, concrete was initially produced on site and the concreting was done with buckets and "tins" while the concrete was transferred on the floors with lifts or cranes.
Towards the end of ‘60s, the Ready Mixed Concrete comes to Greece with Et Beton to be one of the first ready-mixed concrete plants. The transport of concrete is made henceforth with truck – mixers and the concreting with pumps.
It should also be considered as an important progress, the use of chemical admixtures in concrete and more specifically the superplasticizer (1980). These materials, made possible the preparation of concretes of high strength and durability, a fact that led to the production of high performance concrete.
Nowadays, there is a rapid progress and it is really difficult to foresee the future.
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