Early age microstructure of Portland cement mortar investigated by ultrasonic shear waves and numerical simulation

Thomas Voigt*, Guang Ye, Zhihui Sun, Surendra P Shah, Klaas Van Breugel

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

110 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper investigates the ability of a shear wave reflection (WR) method to monitor microstructural changes of Portland cement mortar during hydration. The wave reflection method measures the reflection loss of shear waves at an interface between a steel plate and mortar. Mortars with water/cement ratios of 0.35, 0.5 and 0.6 were tested at isothermal curing conditions of 25 °C. The numerical model HYMOSTRUC3D was used to simulate the evolution of microstructural properties of the cement paste phase of the tested mortars. The parameters obtained from the simulations were the volume fraction of the total and connected solid phase and the specific contact area of the hydrated cement particles. The investigations have shown that the wave reflection measurements are governed primarily by the degree of the inter-particle bonding of the cement particles as calculated from the specific contact area of a simulated microstructure.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)858-866
Number of pages9
JournalCement and Concrete Research
Volume35
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2005

Funding

The research presented in this paper was funded by the Institute of Technology and Infrastructure of Northwestern University, the Center for Advanced Cement-Based Materials and the National Science Foundation (CMS-0408427). Their financial support is gratefully acknowledged.

Keywords

  • Hydration
  • Microstructure
  • No category: nondestructive testing
  • Numerical simulation

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Building and Construction
  • General Materials Science

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