Some Difficulties in the Assessment of Pore-Structure of High Performance Blended Cement Pastes

1984 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan K. Marsh ◽  
Robert L. Day

AbstractPartial replacement of cement by fly-ash allows the production of concretes with high strength and low permeability. The correct analysis and prediction of engineering behaviour requires a knowledge of the development of pore-structure of these materials. However, a study of the relationships between engineering and microstructural characteristics has revealed problems in the accurate assessment of pore-structure.Porosities of plain and blended pastes were analysed by both helium pycnometry and mercury porosimetry. Pastes showing pozzolanic reaction gave values of helium porosity whidh were different from the mercury porosity (measured on the same sample); pastes showing no pozzolanic reaction gave equal values for mercury and helium porosity. Also, significant differences in porosity and pore-size distribution were found for identical specimens when prepared by different techniques, namely direct oven-drying and solventreplacement; these differences occurred whether there was pozzolanic reaction or not.It is suggested that as well as experimental difficulties, there may be fundamental differences in the way pore-structure develops in plain and blended cement pastes.

1988 ◽  
Vol 137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Della M. Roy

AbstractPermeabilities to water and diffusion of ionic species in cementitious grouts, pastes and mortars are important keys to concrete durability. Investigations have been made of numerous materials containing portland and blended cements, and those with fine-grained filler, at room temperature and after prolonged curing at several elevated temperatures up to 90°C. These constitute part of studies of fundamental material relationships performed in order to address the question of long-term durability. In general, the permeabilities of the materials have been found to be low [many <10−8 Darcy (10−13 m·s−1)] after curing for 28 days or longer at temperatures up to 60°C. The results obtained at 90°C are somewhat more complex. In some sets of studies of blended cement pastes with w/c varying from 0.30 to 0.60 and cured at temperatures up to 90°C the more open-pore structure (at the elevated temperature and higher w/c) as evident from SEM microstructural studies as well as mercury porosimetry are generally correlated also with a higher permeability to liquid. The degree of bonding and permeability evident in paste or mortar/rock interfacial studies present somewhat more conflicting results. The bond strength (tensile mode) has been shown to be improved in some materials with increased temperature. The results of permeability studies of paste/rock couples show examples with similar low permeabilities, and some with increased permeability with temperature.Ionic diffusion studies also bring important bearing to understanding the effect of pore structure. The best interrelationships between chloride diffusion and pore structure appear to relate diffusion rate to median pore size. Similar results were found with “chloride permeability” test.


1986 ◽  
Vol 85 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Cook ◽  
Huu T. Cao ◽  
Everett P. Coan

ABSTRACTPore structure development in portland/fly ash blends was investigated using mercury porosimetry and methanol exchange techniques. The progress of hydration was monitored using compressive strength tests. The specimens were made using four water-cement ratios and were hydrated over a one-year period in lime-saturated water. Mercury porosimetry results indicated that the blended cement pastes generally had higher total porosity than plain cement pastes. The major contribution to this increase in porosity was in the form of smaller pore sizes. With reactive fly ash at 20% replacement, the pore structure of mature paste consists mainly of pores nominally smaller than 0.05 μm in diameter. Diffusion parameters obtained from the methanol exchange results were found to be inversely related to the volume of large pores (nominally <0.05 μm) and also to the volume of small pores (nominally <0.05 μm). The effects of the physical and chemical properties of cements and fly ashes on pore structure development are discussed.


1986 ◽  
Vol 86 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Cook ◽  
Huu T. Cao ◽  
Everett P. Coan

ABSTRACTPore structure development in portland cement/fly ash blends was investigated using mercury porosimetry and methanol exchange techniques. The progress of hydration was monitored using compressive strength tests. The specimens were made using four water-cement ratios and were hydrated over a one-year period in lime-saturated water. Mercury porosimetry results indicated that the blended cement pastes generally had higher total porosity than plain cement pastes. The major contribution to this increase in porosity was in the form of smaller pore sizes. With reactive fly ash at 20% replacement, the pore structure of mature paste consists mainly of pores nominally smaller than 0.05 μm in diameter. Diffusion parameters obtained from the methanol exchange results were found to be inversely related to the volume of large pores (nominally >0.05 μm) and also to the volume of small pores (nominally <0.05 μm). The effects of the physical and chemical properties of cements and fly ashes on pore structure development are discussed.


Author(s):  
Ariful Hasnat ◽  
Nader Ghafoori

AbstractThis study aimed to determine the abrasion resistance of ultra-high-performance concretes (UHPCs) for railway sleepers. Test samples were made with different cementitious material combinations and varying steel fiber contents and shapes, using conventional fine aggregate. A total of 25 UHPCs and two high-strength concretes (HSCs) were selected to evaluate their depth of wear and bulk properties. The results of the coefficient of variation (CV), relative gain in abrasion, and abrasion index of the studied UHPCs were also obtained and discussed. Furthermore, a comparison was made on the resistance to wear of the selected UHPCs with those of the HSCs typically used for prestressed concrete sleepers. The outcomes of this study revealed that UHPCs displayed excellent resistance against abrasion, well above that of HSCs. Amongst the utilized cementitious material combinations, UHPCs made with silica fume as a partial replacement of cement performed best against abrasion, whereas mixtures containing fly ash showed the highest depth of wear. The addition of steel fibers had a more positive influence on the abrasion resistance than it did on compressive strength of the studied UHPCs.


2019 ◽  
Vol 967 ◽  
pp. 205-213
Author(s):  
Faiz U.A. Shaikh ◽  
Anwar Hosan

This paper presents the effect of nanosilica (NS) on compressive strength and microstructure of cement paste containing high volume slag and high volume slag-fly ash blend as partial replacement of ordinary Portland cement (OPC). Results show that high volume slag (HVS) cement paste containing 60% slag exhibited about 4% higher compressive strength than control cement paste, while the HVS cement paste containing 70% slag maintained the similar compressive strength to control cement paste. However, about 9% and 37% reduction in compressive strength in HVS cement pastes is observed due to use of 80% and 90% slag, respectively. The high volume slag-fly ash (HVSFA) cement pastes containing total slag and fly ash content of 60% exhibited about 5%-16% higher compressive strength than control cement paste. However, significant reduction in compressive strength is observed in higher slag-fly ash blends with increasing in fly ash contents. Results also show that the addition of 1-4% NS improves the compressive strength of HVS cement paste containing 70% slag by about 9-24%. However, at higher slag contents of 80% and 90% this improvement is even higher e.g. 11-29% and 17-41%, respectively. The NS addition also improves the compressive strength by about 1-59% and 5-21% in high volume slag-fly ash cement pastes containing 21% fly ash+49%slag and 24% fly ash+56%slag, respectively. The thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) results confirm the reduction of calcium hydroxide (CH) in HVS/HVSFA pastes containing NS indicating the formation of additional calcium silicate hydrate (CSH) gels in the system. By combining slag, fly ash and NS in high volumes e.g. 70-80%, the carbon footprint of cement paste is reduced by 66-76% while maintains the similar compressive strength of control cement paste. Keywords: high volume slag, nanosilica, compressive strength, TGA, high volume slag-fly ash blend, CO2 emission.


2018 ◽  
Vol 765 ◽  
pp. 324-328
Author(s):  
Tiago Assunção Santos ◽  
José da Silva Andrade Neto ◽  
Vitor Souza Santos ◽  
Daniel Véras Ribeiro

Due to the concern with the environmental impacts caused by the gases emitted by the cement industry and by the inadequate disposal of wastes generated in the sugar-alcohol industry, such as sugarcane bagasse ash (SCBA), a search for the development of new technologies, which are less aggressive to the environment and that propose feasible alternatives, began in order to reuse these wastes properly. Among these alternatives is the reuse of SCBA as partial replacement to cement or as addition to cementitious matrices. In this way, the present research has the objective of analyzing the influence of SCBA obtained by the calcination of sugarcane bagasse (SCB), at 600°C, in the process of Portland cement hydration. Initially, the SCBA was characterized physically, chemically and mineralogically, and then cement pastes with 20% and 35% substitution contents were elaborated, besides the reference paste, which were analyzed through X-ray diffraction (XRD) and thermogravimetric (TG) techniques. The results obtained show that there is a consumption of portlandite as a consequence of the use of SCBA, evidencing the pozolanicity of these ashes. In the pastes with 35% substitution content, there was an intense consumption of the portlandite, indicating, in this proportion, the pozzolanic reaction was more intense.


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