Liquid water permeability of partially saturated cement paste assessed by dem-based methodology

Liquid water permeability of partially saturated cement paste assessed by dem-based methodology

Li, K.
Stroeven, P.
Stroeven, M.
Sluys, L.J.

Civil Engineering and Geosciences

Structural Engineering

2015-09-28

Permeability of virtual cement seems to exceed experimental data by several orders of magnitude. The differences may actually not be that dramatic, since experimental samples are in practice not always fully saturated as generally assumed. This paper demonstrates that this has enormous effects on permeability. A numerical study is conducted on water permeability of partially saturated cement paste based on simulated microstructures. During drying, larger pores empty first according to the Kelvin-Laplace law, leading to a significant decline in water permeability. The results in terms of relative water permeability have been validated against lattice Boltzmann simulations and experimental data, respectively. A satisfactory agreement is found. Both the pore size distribution and pore connectivity are shown to have an important influence on the overall permeability. The effects of technological parameters, such as hydration age and water-to-cement ratio, have also been discussed.

cement paste
water permeability
water saturation degree
pore network
DEM
particle simulation

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:8c58f186-5559-408b-af01-42dd783cb690

Institute of Fundamental Technological Research PAS

Proceedings of the 11th International Symposium on Brittle Matrix Composites, BMC-11, 28-30 September 2015, Warsaw, Poland

Institutional Repository

conference paper

(c) 2015 The Author(s)