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Drying and carbonation shrinkage of cement paste containing alkalis

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Abstract

In this work, shrinkage performance of ordinary portland cement (OPC) paste containing various alkali salts was characterized at two drying conditions, namely: nitrogen gas and air. The results show that incorporation of alkalis dramatically increases shrinkage magnitude, but reduces shrinkage kinetics of OPC, regardless of source and type of alkalis (e.g. Na+ or K+). The amount of alkalis bound in the solid hydrated phases, rather than the free alkalis remaining in the pore solution, is crucial in controlling the shrinkage performance of OPC. It is suggested that the alkali enrichment in OPC increases the visco-elastic/visco-plastic compliance (reduce creep modulus) of its solid skeleton under drying-induced internal stresses. This phenomenon is likely to be attributed to the alkalis binding in calcium–silicate–hydrate (C–S–H), which promotes the packing of C–S–H nanoparticles. Carbonation results in shrinkage (i.e. carbonation shrinkage) in plain OPC, but expansion in OPC with alkali enrichment. The overall volume change of OPC due to carbonation may be a result of competition between dissolution-induced shrinkage and crystallization-induced expansion.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Prof. Farshad Rajabipour for his insightful thoughts and discussion regarding several topics discussed in this paper. The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the US National Science Foundation (NSF) under Award CMMI #1265789. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.

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  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, 3127 Research Drive, State College, PA, 16801, USA

    Hailong Ye, Aleksandra Radlińska & Juliana Neves

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  1. Hailong Ye
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  2. Aleksandra Radlińska
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Correspondence to Hailong Ye.

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Ye, H., Radlińska, A. & Neves, J. Drying and carbonation shrinkage of cement paste containing alkalis. Mater Struct 50, 132 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1617/s11527-017-1006-x

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