Microfracture Characterization of Cement Paste at Early Age by Indentation Test
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 30, Issue 6
Abstract
Fracture properties of cement paste at an early age are difficult to determine using conventional methods because of its low strength. By using an indentation technique, this paper reported a fracture test method for early-age cement paste in microscale. Power equations were employed to capture the load-displacement curves, where the power indexes were acquired to be associated with energy constants. The elastic energy constant may be a featured parameter to characterize solid phases. An explicit expression for estimating plastic energy with the effect of holding load at peak force was established based on an energy method. The fracture energy, energy release rate, and fracture toughness of a cement paste cured for 3 days were calculated directly from indentation curves via this model. The microstructure of the cement paste was studied using scanning electron microscopy and backscattering analysis. The results show that the fracture data of the cement paste at an early age from the indentation tests are stable and comparable with those by conventional macrofracture tests. The indentation-based fracture testing method may provide an efficient method to assess the fracture properties of cement-based materials.
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Acknowledgments
Dr. Qiang Zeng acknowledges the financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51408536).
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Published In
Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 30 • Issue 6 • June 2018
Copyright
©2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 1, 2017
Accepted: Dec 7, 2017
Published online: Apr 10, 2018
Published in print: Jun 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Sep 10, 2018
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