Study of Drying Shrinkage Cracking by Lattice Gas Automaton and Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope

Numerical modeling of moisture flow, drying shrinkage and crack phenomena in cement microstructure, by coupling a Lattice Gas Automaton and a Lattice Fracture Model, highlighted the importance of a shrinkage coefficient (?sh) as the most significant parameter for achieving realistic numerical results. Therefore, experiments on drying of cement paste samples were conducted in an Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope to find shrinkage coefficient relating shrinkage deformations and moisture content. Illustration of moisture flow in the heterogeneous sample by the Lattice Gas Automaton analysis is also presented.Structural EngineeringCivil Engineering and Geoscience