I’m not a concrete expert, but a tonne of concrete is less than half a cubic metre.
A concrete truck carries 10 cubic yards, or nearly 18 metric tons of concrete.
If this “educational fact” is true, then that amount of sugar might cause an issue with a piece of sidewalk, but it’s unlikely to get noticed on anything being built with concrete, unless you bring a metric shit ton of sugar to the party.
As it happens, sugar appears to be added to concrete on purpose, specifically to increase the working time at the potential cost of weakening the structure, but research into that is ongoing.
Edit: After it was pointed out to me by @Lupus@feddit.org that my link was slop, which I agree after reading more than the first two paragraphs, I went looking for better information and found this actual research:
Interestingly during my search for information in relation to sugar added to concrete, my results appeared overwhelmingly generated by LLM, like the top link I found initially.
Also, adding sugar appears to increase the compressive strength and that might be more significant than the increased work time.
I don’t know, after reading through that AI slob of an article it says a good amount to add while still retaining sufficient strength after curing is between 0,1 to 0,5% sugar.
So let’s assume that more than 1% gets you into trouble, that’s still a lot, but sticking to your 18 tons concrete truck example - 180kg of sugar will ruin a whole truckload of concrete.
I think I could smuggle 180kg of sugar into a concrete truck without anyone noticing until it’s too late.
I’d say with enough people and dedication the story in the post could be true, not super likely but also not impossible.
According to the netflix series called High Tides that I watched the rich bury dead bodies in the buildings they build to hide them and Netflix would never lie to me
There was an episode of MythBusters where they buried a couple pigs in concrete to see what decomposing bodies do in exactly that case. They indeed leave a gross hollow space.
I’m not a concrete expert, but a tonne of concrete is less than half a cubic metre.
A concrete truck carries 10 cubic yards, or nearly 18 metric tons of concrete.
If this “educational fact” is true, then that amount of sugar might cause an issue with a piece of sidewalk, but it’s unlikely to get noticed on anything being built with concrete, unless you bring a metric shit ton of sugar to the party.
As it happens, sugar appears to be added to concrete on purpose, specifically to increase the working time at the potential cost of weakening the structure, but research into that is ongoing.
Source: https://concretecaptain.com/what-does-sugar-do-to-concrete-mix/
In other words, this post is bollocks.
Edit: After it was pointed out to me by @Lupus@feddit.org that my link was slop, which I agree after reading more than the first two paragraphs, I went looking for better information and found this actual research:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221450952030036X
Interestingly during my search for information in relation to sugar added to concrete, my results appeared overwhelmingly generated by LLM, like the top link I found initially.
Also, adding sugar appears to increase the compressive strength and that might be more significant than the increased work time.
I don’t know, after reading through that AI slob of an article it says a good amount to add while still retaining sufficient strength after curing is between 0,1 to 0,5% sugar.
So let’s assume that more than 1% gets you into trouble, that’s still a lot, but sticking to your 18 tons concrete truck example - 180kg of sugar will ruin a whole truckload of concrete.
I think I could smuggle 180kg of sugar into a concrete truck without anyone noticing until it’s too late.
I’d say with enough people and dedication the story in the post could be true, not super likely but also not impossible.
Can any concrete experts suggest another additive for us to avoid?
Not a concrete expert, but dead bodies. They decompose, can create pockets of pressurised gas, and leave a hollow cavity of no structural strength.
Source: Me. I made it up, but seems plausible.
According to the netflix series called High Tides that I watched the rich bury dead bodies in the buildings they build to hide them and Netflix would never lie to me
There was an episode of MythBusters where they buried a couple pigs in concrete to see what decomposing bodies do in exactly that case. They indeed leave a gross hollow space.
I mean your username is literally “towerful” so I expect you to know something about towers that don’t collapse, I guess?