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if you add too much water there won’t be enough calcium silicate from the cement powder to react with, and so water will be left over within the structure, which makes it weak. Similarly, if you add too little water there will be unreacted cement left over, which again weakens the structure. It is usually human error of this sort that proves the undoing of concrete. Such poor concrete can go undiscovered but then lead to catastrophe many years after the builders have departed. The extent of the devastation due to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti was blamed on shoddy construction and poor-quality ...more
Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World
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