Cement Paste Microporosity Analysis: A Comparison of Different Experimental Techniques

Microstructure defines almost all material physical properties of a substance. Thus, its proper identification is essential for the assessment of material durability. Porous materials constitute the vast majority of those applied in civil engineering. The most important parameters describing a porous structure are the specific surface area, the shape and volume of pores and the pore size distribution. There are several methods which provide such results; however, each of them has some drawbacks. The main purpose of this paper is to compare results obtained by means of various methods commonly applied to the investigation of microstructure. These methods are mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP), low temperature sorption of nitrogen and thermoporometry (TPM). The experimental research is conducted on aluminium oxide, which is characterised by unimodal pore size distribution and hardened cement paste prepared using portland cement (CEM I 42.5R with water-cement ratio equal to 0.5. The results obtained by the above--mentioned methods are thoroughly described and compared in this paper. Each of the presented approaches has some limitations; therefore, in order to receive a reliable description of porous microstructure, one has to apply at least two different experimental methods.