Brief Note on Sweating Slab Syndrome
Concrete?is used for all kinds of construction works these days. It is the first choice for?building supports?and beams because of its excellent load-bearing capacity, tensile strength, and longevity. However, nothing is a hundred percent impervious to?weather effects,?and neither is concrete.
Concrete Sweating, or more technically known as SSS (Sweating Slab Syndrome) occurs when water droplets are accumulated on the surface of a concrete structure. The phenomena occur generally overnight and may look like the concrete structure is sweating, hence the name. This can be a potentially dangerous issue in some cases.
Reasons for Concrete Sweating
There can be two main reasons why a structure is showing the?SSS?- dew point and?subsurface moisture. Let us discuss them below.
Dew Point
When you take a soda out of the fridge and keep it out for a while, the soda bottle or can starts sweating. The same thing happens with concrete as well, especially overnight. A?concrete surface?is rather cooler than the air in contact with it. When the concrete is cooler than the dew point (the temperature at which the water vapor in the air starts to condense into liquid), the moisture in air sticks to the concrete. This, in turn, starts forming the?water droplets. Which, to uninformed eyes, looks like as if the concrete has started sweating.