The physics of cement cohesion
Name
sciadv.abg5882.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
559.92 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
f4150be334a2f359b221cc75481f7977
Author(s)
Goyal, Abhay
Palaia, Ivan
Ioannidou, Katerina
Ulm, Franz-Josef
van Damme, Henri
Pellenq, Roland J-M
Trizac, Emmanuel
Del Gado, Emanuela
Date Issued
August 2021
Journal
Science Advances
Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Citation
Goyal, Abhay, Palaia, Ivan, Ioannidou, Katerina, Ulm, Franz-Josef, van Damme, Henri et al. 2021. "The physics of cement cohesion." Science Advances, 7 (32).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Cement is the most produced material in the world. A major player in greenhouse gas emissions, it is the main binding agent in concrete, providing a cohesive strength that rapidly increases during setting. Understanding how such cohesion emerges is a major obstacle to advances in cement science and technology. Here, we combine computational statistical mechanics and theory to demonstrate how cement cohesion arises from the organization of interlocked ions and water, progressively confined in nanoslits between charged surfaces of calcium-silicate-hydrates. Because of the water/ions interlocking, dielectric screening is drastically reduced and ionic correlations are proven notably stronger than previously thought, dictating the evolution of nanoscale interactions during cement hydration. By developing a quantitative analytical prediction of cement cohesion based on Coulombic forces, we reconcile a fundamental understanding of cement hydration with the fully atomistic description of the solid cement paste and open new paths for scientific design of construction materials.
MIT Department
MultiScale Materials Science for Energy and Environment, Joint MIT-CNRS Laboratory
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abg5882
