Experimental investigation of the short-term creep recovery of hardened cement paste at micrometre length scale

Experimental investigation of the short-term creep recovery of hardened cement paste at micrometre length scale

Gan, Y. (TU Delft Materials and Environment)
Vandamme, Matthieu (Gustave Eiffel University)
Chen, Y. (TU Delft Materials and Environment)
Schlangen, E. (TU Delft Materials and Environment)
van Breugel, K. (TU Delft Materials and Environment)
Šavija, B. (TU Delft Materials and Environment)

2021

This paper presents an experimental investigation on the short-term creep recovery of cement paste at micrometre length scale. Micro-cantilever beams were fabricated and tested with 8 different loading series using the nanoindenter. It is found that cement pastes show high recovery ratios (>80%) even subjected to very high stress levels. Relatively lower recovery ratios and non-linear creep were also observed for w/c 0.4 samples under high stress levels. A good agreement is found between the results predicted using the linear superposition principle and the experimental results except for the measured non-linear creep in w/c 0.4 samples. It is suggested that the short-term creep recovery may be associated with the microscale stress redistribution or the reversible internal water movement. The observed non-linear creep under the highest stress level may be due to the higher density of microcracks generated during the loading stage, which may further promote the water transfer.

Cement paste
Creep
Miniaturized cantilever beam
Nanoindenter

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:128686ae-bf6f-4b8f-9879-2a48302225b7

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cemconres.2021.106562

0008-8846

Cement and Concrete Research, 149

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2021 Y. Gan, Matthieu Vandamme, Y. Chen, E. Schlangen, K. van Breugel, B. Šavija