Estimation of the Degree of Hydration of Blended Cement Pastes by a Scanning Electron Microscope Point-Counting Procedure

Published

October 1, 2004

Author(s)

X Feng, Edward J. Garboczi, Paul E. Stutzman, T Mason

Abstract

A scanning electron microscope (SEM) point-counting technique was employed to study the hydration of plain portland cement pastes and blended cement pastes containing fly ash or slag. For plain portland cement pastes, the results for the degree of cement hydration obtained by the SEM point-counting technique were consistent with the results from traditional loss on ignition non-evaporable water content measurements; agreement was within ± 10 %. The standard deviation in the determination of the degree of cement hydration via point-counting ranged from ± 1.5 % to ± 1.8 %. For the blended cement pastes, it is the first time that the degree of hydration of cement in blended systems was directly studied. The standard deviation for the degree of hydration of cement in the blended cement pastes ranged from ± 1.4 % to ± 2.2 %. Additionally, the degrees of reaction of the pozzolans were also measured. The standard deviation for the degree of fly ash reaction was ± 4.6% to ± 5.0 %, and ± 3.6 % to ± 4.3 % for slag. All of the analyses suggest that the SEM point-counting technique can be a reliable and effective analysis tool to study the hydration of blended cement pastes.

Citation

Cement and Concrete Research

Volume

34

Issue

10

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

blast furnace slag, blended cement, degree of hydration, fly ash, non-evaporable water content, point-counting, pozzolanic reaction

Citation

Feng, X. , Garboczi, E. , Stutzman, P. and Mason, T. (2004), Estimation of the Degree of Hydration of Blended Cement Pastes by a Scanning Electron Microscope Point-Counting Procedure, Cement and Concrete Research, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=860511 (Accessed October 27, 2025)