Nondestructive determination of drying deformations in cement paste by means of ESEM and digital image analysis

Novel modifications of an environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM) were made in order to measure the local deformations in drying cement paste. These nondestructively determined moisture-induced plane strains, obtained in 1 mm thick cement paste samples, are orthotropic. They vary with variations of relative humidity between 70%-80% and...