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 CONCRETE Advice
CONCRETE ADVICE No. 18

Delamination of concrete
floor surfaces
Licensed copy: burohapp, Buro Happold Ltd, 11/05/2009, Uncontrolled Copy, ®The Concrete Society

Tony Hulett BSc MICT & John Plimmer BSc CEng MICE MICT

Delamination is a common problem affecting power-finished concrete floor slabs,

although it must be stressed that many thousands of square metres of high-
quality concrete floors are built each year without this problem. Delamination is
characterised by thin layers of surface mortar becoming detached from the main
body of the slab. The delaminated layer can vary from being paper-thin up to
about 8 mm thick, and its area can vary from a centimetre or two across up to
several square metres. This document overviews the causes of delamination in
concrete floors.

1 Floating and trowelling There are two primary causes of surface

For successful finishing, the concrete at the
surface of a slab must behave uniformly in
terms of its stiffening characteristics. It
must therefore be thoroughly mixed, with
close control over the consistence between
successive loads. Warm conditions and
particularly drying winds, can affect the
stiffening rate adversely and significantly
reduce the 'window' available for finishing.
Conversely, cold and damp extend the
setting time and reduce evaporation,
extending the period until finishing can
take place. Both these extremes can cause
difficulties for the floor-layer.
Power finishing, the combination of
floating followed by trowelling, requires
considerable skill, not just in working the
equipment to produce a dense uniform
finish but also in 'reading' the concrete to
know when to carry out the various stages
of the finishing operation.
loss on new concrete slabs. These are
caused by over-layering and by true delam-
ination.
2 Over-layering
Over-layering results primarily from
problems encountered while finishing
concrete slabs. It is often associated with vari-
ability in the concrete setting characteristics.
Over-layering arises from the spreading of
soft mortar over already hardened adjacent
areas of floor surface. This mortar layer sub-
sequently becomes detached.
There are a number of variants to over-
layering, some quite subtle and difficult to
relate to a precise cause unless the finishing
process is being very closely watched.
Sometimes the finisher may not realise that
the equipment is spreading thin layers of
mortar onto already stiffened or hardened
areas.
 2.1 Causes of over-layering
There are three main causes of over-
layering:
1. Sprinkling water over the surface
of a fresh concrete slab, which
has stiffened to the extent of
Licensed copy: burohapp, Buro Happold Ltd, 11/05/2009, Uncontrolled Copy, ®The Concrete Society
making finishing difficult, can
cause problems. This 'livening
up' is to reduce the friction
beneath the float and sometimes
includes the scattering of cement
on the surface to assist in the for-
mation of slurry. Problems arise
if the mortar slurry is spread over
areas where the power-finishing
has already been completed.
Minor amounts of water, shaken
on to the surface by brush to
provide 'lubrication' at the
surface for the power-trowelling
stage, should not cause
problems.
2. Over-layering can occur when
the concrete surface has not been
sufficiently well flattened before
floating. The action of the float,
and perhaps later the trowel, will
tend to remove mortar from the
high spots to fill the hollows.
Where the concrete has stiffened
to some degree, the lower undis-
turbed surface may be already
partially closed and not very con-
ducive to bonding with the over
layer of mortar slurry. In effect, a
cold joint is formed.
3. Over-layering can occur when an
area of concrete reaches a con-
dition where it is ready for
floating while an adjacent area is
not. It is therefore necessary to
start work on the area that is
ready and return later to work on
the adjacent area. Sometimes it
may be possible to marry the
boundary between the two areas
without blemish. However, if the
delay is too great, the harder area
is difficult to trowel and becomes
scored and too damaged for the
trowel to subsequently polish.
The temptation therefore is to
work on the softer area as soon
as possible, and it is then that
smears of material can be trans-
ported over the harder surface.
2.2 Identifying over-layering
With all types of over-layering, the
surface of the delaminated area of
mortar in contact with the underlying
concrete is characteristically
'moulded'. The contact (under)
surface of the delaminated layer is
usually slightly open in texture but is
smooth and reproduces the features
of the surface of the concrete below.
This surface usually has a grey
mortar finish with markings and
characteristics present at the time it
was over-layered. There may be a
slight lime bloom. There will gen-
erally be no torn surfaces or exposed
aggregate surfaces and no signs of
the fine particle separation that
occurs if water was present.
In the case of cause 1, the mortar
forming the delamination layer is
invariably fine-grained and may be
weak. With causes 2 and 3 the mortar
layer, unless very thick, also tends to
be fine-grained. If it is thick, it may
be stratified with an upper region
densified by trowelling and a less
well-compacted region beneath. The
layer is usually quite hard and brittle.
3 Delamination
Delamination is more complex than
over-layering and results from the
development of a layer of water and
or air just beneath the top surface of
the floor. This creates a plane of
weakness resulting in the
detachment of the top surface.
3.1 Causes of delamination
in non-air entrained
concrete
In some conditions, the top surface
of the concrete can stiffen such that
it is ready for the finishing oper-
ations while the underlying concrete
is still relatively plastic and still
capable of bleeding. The densifi-
cation of the surface by floating and
trowelling can then seal the surface
and trap the bleed water still rising
to the surface.
The bleed water becomes trapped in
pockets beneath the surface, as
shown in Figure 1a. As further trow-
elling takes place, these pockets of
water are consolidated into a layer
forming a plane of weakness as
shown in Figure 1b. The floor
finisher is unlikely to realise that
this is happening unless blistering
occurs under the action of trowel
blades, as illustrated in Figure 1c.
The pressure exerted by the blade
tends to spread the lens of trapped
bleed water completely separating
the mortar layer from the concrete.
Under the action of the blade the
mortar layer is squeezed thinner and
the dragging effect and the sub-
sequent pressure relief once it has
passed produces a lifting action,
allowing it to dome upwards to form
a blister.
Air and water from within the
concrete partly fill the void. Addi-
tional air may be drawn down
through the mortar layer imme-
diately behind the blade. The
dragging action of the blade across a
dry concrete surface may cause the
blister to split. This lets out water,
limiting the size of the blister.
However, air will be sucked in to fill
the void.
3.2 Causes of delamination
in air entrained concrete
Air entrainment should be avoided
in power-finished floors and is not
required even in cold stores and
blast freezers. (These facilities are
not subjected to freeze thaw cycles
in saturated conditions and so air
 entrainment is not required.)
Entrained air has a marked effect on
bleeding. The tiny air bubbles,
introduced into the mortar by the
air-entraining admixture, form in the
spaces between solid particles and
have a plasticising affect. The
Licensed copy: burohapp, Buro Happold Ltd, 11/05/2009, Uncontrolled Copy, ®The Concrete Society
passage of the trowel blades causes
the air bubbles to coalesce to create
a layer of flattened elongated voids
with weak mortar walls. Where the
air content is high, say 8%, large
sheets of surface mortar can slide
free of the underlying concrete
cement paste. There will be some
clean surfaces of aggregate due to
the presence of water and there may
be evidence of lime bloom and silty
material on the exposed concrete
surface. In severe cases, the surface
will still have a granular texture but

concrete requires less water and sed-
imentation is much lower. As the
bleeding can be significantly
reduced, the surface dries and
stiffens faster, such that the process
of finishing must begin earlier.
However, the body of the concrete
below behaves normally and
remains plastic, stiffening gradually
through the chemical reaction of the
cement.
during trowelling.
With fine sands, blistering may
occur, as described in Section 3.1.
With lower air contents, the surface
may apparently finish quite well
with delamination occurring days or
weeks later, when drying shrinkage
of the surface causes the breakdown
of the small pockets of air.
washout will be more evident, with
more washed surfaces and clean silt
and fine sand present. In the case of
delamination in air entrained
concrete the surfaces of the fracture
plane are also generally granular
and grey but with flat bubble sites
just detectable.

A possible explanation of delami- 3.3 Identifying delamination

nation in air entrained concrete is
that the surface can become very dry
during the trowelling process,
causing considerable drag within the
surface mortar layer, whereas the
lower part of the layer 2 or 3 mm
down is still plastic and cohesive.
The shearing action due to the
The surface characteristics of the
underside of the delaminated layer
vary depending upon the severity of
the problem, as illustrated in Figure
1. The surface will be granular and,
in marginal cases as in Figure 1a,
the particles will be covered with

Trapped bleed water pockets

Fig 1a.

Rising bleed water

Direction of travel Trowel blade

Bleed water forced
Pressure into a layer

Fig 1b.
 Uplift caused by drag,
pressure release and
elongation of mortar layer
Direction of travel
Blister
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Fig 1c. Air + Water

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Issued: July 2003

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