DEVELOPMENT OF THREE-DIMENSIONAL OBSERVATION TECHNIQUE FOR PORE STRUCTURE IN HARDENED CEMENT PASTE

Abstract

It is widely known that the property of concrete is influenced by its pore structure, particularly permeability of concrete is directly dependent on it. We have already developed the technique to make clear the pore structure in hardened cement paste by applying gallium intrusion technique and the following EPMA observation. However, this method has only limited to 2 dimensional analysis. We improve the technique to 3 dimensional analysis of pores by stacking up 75 sheets of 2-D pore image pictures. In this paper, 3-D pore image is made up and pore distribution, shape and continuity of various hardened cement paste were discussed.