Assessing Rheological Properties of Cement Paste as a First Step in Predicting Robustness of Self-compacting Concrete

Abstract

This paper proposes a methodology to assess the rheological behavior of cement paste as a first step to linking this behavior to the robustness of the Self Compacting Mortar (SCM) and further extending this to Self-Compacting Concrete (SCC). Cement paste�s rheological behavior was assessed in terms of spread (using a mini-cone) and time of flow (using the Marsh cone). The results show that the type of superplasticizer (SP) admixture has a great influence on the rheological behavior of cement paste and for each combination of binder and superplasticizer admixture there is a specific range of water to binder ratio in which the rheology of paste seems to be appropriate for obtaining a robust SCC mix. The influence of SP and limestone filler addition on the kinetic of cement hydration process was assessed by X Ray Diffraction and thermal analysis (TG-DTA). Based on these results, i.e. an important delaying effect exerted by superplasticizer additions on cement hydration process at early ages (1 day), it can be concluded that when designing SCC for the precast industry - where the early strength of concrete is of high importance, analyzing the early strength of binder paste together with the robustness properties is very important. The correlation between the two aspects - rheology and early strength -is very important in this case in order to obtain applicable results in practice.