Studying Blended Cement Paste with Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Relaxation Time

Abstract

The pore structure of cement paste has a relationship with its strength and durability. An appropriate method of measurement is a prerequisite to study the pore structure of cement paste. Among many test methods, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) relaxation time is a novel testing methods to study pore structure of cement paste. Different from previous research object is limited to white cement, the test sample in this paper is the blended cement paste containing mineral admixture and has been widely used in practical engineering applications. The factors of pore structure are water to cementitious material ratio, kind of mineral admixture, and mineral admixture content. Measure the same sample at four different ages to obtain the relaxation time distribution to reflect the pore structure. The test results show that, in most cases, the distribution curves of the same kind of paste are in good agreement, and the change of relaxation time distribution of the blended cement paste with different ages can be interpreted as the characteristic of the mineral admixtures in cement paste. So the NMR relaxation time is suitable for study on the blended cement paste. However due to side effects caused by iron content and unsaturated water in gel pore, this method needs further improvement.