• Nora (She/Her)@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    10 days ago

    It doesn’t! (ish)

    Sugar can slow down the hardening of concrete, but this is too small of a concentration and even if you do increase the concentration it still hardens which (depending on the application) does not ruin it.

    • Jiggle_Physics@quokk.au
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      10 days ago

      Yes from what I can find, depending on the type of concrete, it takes 4-30lbs of sugar per ton. The point is not to keep it permanently plastic, it will set, but its structural integrity is greatly compromised and it will crumble under stresses far, far, lower than it will need to deal with.

        • Nora (She/Her)@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          10 days ago

          Well no because the other part of this that isnt talked about is… concrete is heavy as fuck, and one ton of concrete is basically nothing size wise. Its more like you have to throw 200lbs of sugar in every truck that arrives at the job site, often with many many trucks.

          • anomnom@sh.itjust.works
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            10 days ago

            That was the red flag when I read this. After letting a few footings for a porch I started till captures how many tins must go into a garage floor slab, let alone a prison in billionaire bunker.

          • Nouvellalia@lemmy.world
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            9 days ago

            I agree that the sugar thing is not really feasible, but if you could find a way to lower the integrity of the concrete, you wouldn’t have to do it to the whole project, only the foundation or the first part of the first floor.

    • Nora (She/Her)@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      10 days ago

      There’s like a thousand caveats to this though just as an aside. If someone realizes the concrete is tampered with, they’re probably tossing the whole batch. It’s better to be safe than sorry and they probably don’t have time to wait for the lab report on what got added to the mix without their permission.

      Not that I’m recommending that people do this, but if you wanted to fuck up concrete I’d think going for a compound that makes it cure faster would be the way to go. Too fast leads to more heat which leads to fractures in the concrete from the intense heat.

      • chaogomu@lemmy.world
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        10 days ago

        Salt. Salt will completely fuck concrete.

        There were Chinese construction companies that cut corners and used beach sand instead of more expensive river sand.

        The buildings the made are all called Tofu towers or something similar, because you can walk up to the ones still standing and pull chunks off, like they were made of tofu.

        • anomnom@sh.itjust.works
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          10 days ago

          So you really just need a few huge empty bags of salt/sand/rice/etc, then get caught sneaking out of the mixing plant.