Modelling of Capillary Pore Structure Evolution in Portland Cement Pastes Based on Irregular-Shaped Cement Particles

The pore structure plays a crucial role in durability performance of cement-based materials. However, the pore structure in cement pastes is highly dependent on the initial packing of cement particles and cement hydration process, which seems to be related to the shapes of cement particles. This paper proposed a numerical method to investigate the effect of cement particle shapes on capillary pore structures in cement pastes. In this study, irregular-shaped cement particles with various shapes are generated using a novel central growth model, and then incorporated into CEMHYD3D model to simulate Portland cement hydration. Some home-made programs of determining pore structure parameters including porosity, pore size distribution, connectivity and tortuosity are subsequently performed on the extracted three-dimensional network of capillary pore structure in cement pastes. The modelling results indicate that shape-induced large surface area in more non-equiaxed irregular-shaped cement particles can improve pore structure parameters in hardened cement pastes, but this effect will be slight in the later curing period and at a low water-tocement ratio. In addition, the less considered geometric difference plays a role in pore structure evolution especially for extremely non-equiaxed cement particle. However, the geometric attribute has a weak effect on pore structure parameters overall. The modelling results can provide a new insight into durability design in cement-based materials by means of manipulating cement particle shape in the future