Experimental and Computer Simulation Results for the Electrical Conductivity of Portland Cement Paste

ABSTRACTThe electrical conductivity of portland cement paste is an important transport property, especially since, when properly normalized by the pore fluid conductivity, it is equivalent to the normalized ionic diffusivity of the material via the Nernst-Einstein relation. This paper presents experimental and computer simulation results for σ/σo, where σ is the conductivity of the bulk paste as determined from impedance spectroscopy, and σo is the conductivity of the pore solution. Comparison between simulation and experiment is carried out for an 0.5 water:cement ratio white cement paste as a function of capillary porosity. The quantitative agreement between theory and experiment is reasonable.