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Innovative low-cost system for early age E-modulus monitoring of cement pastes: validation and application to nanosilica-added and limestone-calcined clay cements

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Abstract

The EMM-ARM (Elastic Modulus Measurement through Ambient Response Method) is an experimental technique that allows the determination of the E-modulus evolution curve of cementitious materials since casting. This work presents a validation of an innovative low-cost EMM-ARM test system and its use to study very early age (until 3 days) E-modulus evolution of cement pastes produced with a 1% nanosilica-added cement and a limestone-calcined clay (LC3) cement, produced with 1:2 clay-limestone ratio and 50% clinker replacement. The tests produced, for the first time, continuous data about the early age E-modulus evolution, hydration degree and final setting time of these materials at the first 3 days of age. Compressive strength and Mercury Intrusion Porosimetry tests were also performed for complementary analysis. The validation results indicated the low-cost innovative system departed only up to 6.33% from reference results and had a coefficient of variation of the order of 4.50%. The application of the system on the studied cements revealed the nanosilica-added and LC3 cement pastes reached, respectively, 220% and 50% of an ordinary Portland cement (OPC) paste E-modulus at 12 h of age, and 180% and 70% at 24 h. The nanosilica-added and LC3 E-modulus gap to OPC paste progressively reduced after 3 days of age to 113% and 91%, respectively, tending to remain at this level at later ages.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico) [Grant number 146401/2018-2].

Funding

This work was supported by CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico) [Grant number 146401/2018-2].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Technology, University of Brasília, 70.910-900, Brasília, Federal District, Brazil

    Renan Rocha Ribeiro, Matheus Ian Castro Sousa, João Henrique da Silva Rêgo & Rodrigo de Melo Lameiras

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  1. Renan Rocha Ribeiro
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Contributions

Renan Rocha Ribeiro: data curation, formal analysis, investigation, methodology, project administration, software, visualization, writing—original draft Matheus Ian Castro Sousa: data curation, formal analysis, investigation, visualization, writing—original draft. João Henrique da Silva Rêgo: conceptualization, supervision, validation, writing—review & editing. Rodrigo de Melo Lameiras: conceptualization, project administration, resources, supervision, validation, writing—review & editing.

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Correspondence to Renan Rocha Ribeiro.

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Rocha Ribeiro, R., Sousa, M.I.C., Rêgo, J.H.d. et al. Innovative low-cost system for early age E-modulus monitoring of cement pastes: validation and application to nanosilica-added and limestone-calcined clay cements. Mater Struct 55, 13 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1617/s11527-021-01849-w

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