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Avoid cracks in the concrete
AVOID CRACKS IN THE
CONCRETE
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Probably many people have heard about the mixture of sugar with asphalt, but many did not know the mixture with cement and sand, know that you can also mix sugar in concrete.
In some regions of Brazil, there is evidence of the use of sugar as a cement setting retarder, mainly used in slabs.
Many categories of sugar and kneading water contaminants can delay setting time, as they contain lignosulfonates in their chemical composition.
Contamination of aggregates by certain categories of sugars can abruptly delay the beginning of cement setting when compared to a reference sample without addition. The results indicate that sugar alters the cement setting time, and this helps a lot in the mass strength, thus preventing cracking.
Anyone in the sugarcane industry believes the news is encouraging, as it is another promising market for the commodity, since the greater the consumption of a product, the more expensive it becomes. If the population starts to use sugar in construction, the product will probably be in short supply, making it more expensive in
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the market, this would help mills, but harm consumers.
To solve this problem, thus helping mills and customers, it would be better to plant more sugarcane, so the increase in production would not affect the increase in sales, look for new methods that already exist and plant more cane in the same square meter or harvest canes in a shorter period maintaining quality.
With more cane to grind, it would be necessary to build more mills, increase crushing per day or reduce the days between harvests.
Civil construction is using refined sugar to repair problems such as micro-cracks and cracks in concrete exposed to high temperatures.
Mixed in small proportions with concrete, the substance is like a pitch, compact and sealing. According to industry professionals, the dough is great for coating or placing bricks in ovens, as it does not cracks with temperature.
On average, the recommendation for use is around two cups of tea for each kilo of cement, but in order not to disturb the progress of the work, it would be easier to add the sugar and also the sand, in the work, to make it
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easier.
Each cup of tea is equivalent to 100 grams of sugar, which in this case would need 200 grams for each kilo used, using half a bag of cement, which means 25 kilos, you would need to add 2.5 of sugar, which in this case is a bag of 5 kilos of sugar, and if it is a whole bag it would cost 10 kilos.
There is still another sugarcane derivative that arouses interest in various sectors of civil construction. It is the ash from sugarcane bagasse, which has been presented as a good replacement for natural aggregators, such as sand, cement and gravel. This ash is the final product of bagasse burning in boilers. Which are often used a lot as fertilizers!
The studies evaluated that for a replacement content of 30% to 50% there was an increase of up to 15% in compressive strength. This shows that concrete with sugar cane ash is more resistant than concrete with sand. Excellent data for the Brazilian reality, which produces 3.8 million tons of ash.
Some people replace some of the sand with ash, others
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replace some of the cement.
If you want to replace it with cement, it's easier for you to add the ash and more sand than to remove the cement, in this case, you can do it as follows, if the line you use is 1:2:3 (1 part of cement, 2 parts of sand and 3 parts of gravel), you can keep this same trace, in which case you would make half mass, put 10 kilos of ash, half a bag of cement and instead of 1 carriola of sand and add ¼ of sand in the carriola, and then I would put 2 gravel carriolas.