Measurement of the chemical composition, phase abundance, and microstructure of cementitious materials is an increasingly important prerequisite for mixture design, quality control, and troubleshooting of concrete materials. This workshop will provide practical information and guidance on performing chemical and phase analyses of portland cement and portland cement clinker materials, including hands-on practice with analyzing real data. The workshop will address several complementary methods but will focus especially on quantitative X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) and quantitative scanning electron microscopy (SEM) for characterizing unhydrated materials.
The workshop assumes a general familiarity with concrete materials, but no specialized knowledge of materials characterization is required. Engineers, research scientists, and technicians responsible for cementitious materials characterization, quality control, or testing should find this workshop beneficial for their continuing education and professional development.
To participate in the practicums, each participant should bring a laptop computer (Windows or Mac) with the following free public domain software packages and data files downloaded and installed prior to the workshop:
Brief instructions are provided below for downloading and installing the software. Please consult your system administrator about permissions or other security settings that may prevent you from successfully installing the software.
Other software and material data sets may be provided at the workshop.
The updated workshop schedule is available here .
Paul Stutzman , Steve Feldman , Jeff Bullard (NIST)
Alex Brand (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech)
dbroton [at] ctlgroup.com (Don Broton) (CTLGroup)
Paul Stutzman (paul.stutzman [at] nist.gov (paul[dot]stutzman[at]nist[dot]gov)) is a physical scientist in the Inorganic Materials Group of the Materials and Structural Systems Division of the Engineering Laboratory (EL) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). His interests include measurement of microstructural features of clinker, cement, and mineral admixtures and developing means to assess the interactions of cement – admixtures on the hydration process through real-time quantitative x-ray powder diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. Paul is a member of ASTM C1 (Cement) and C9 (Concrete) chairs the Compositional Analysis Committee Task Groups on Microscopy and Quantitative X-Ray Powder Diffraction Methods. He is also a member of the C1 Executive Committee and C1 Secretary and is on the Editorial Board of the ASTM Journal Advances in Civil Engineering Materials. In 2013 Paul was named a Fellow of ASTM and received their International Award of Merit for distinguished service and outstanding participation. Paul received a NIST Bronze award in 2008 for efforts in developing and promoting a powder diffraction method for compositional analysis of cements within ASTM. In 1992 and in 2008, he received the P. H. Bates Award for outstanding papers, "Cement Clinker Characterization by Scanning Electron Microscopy" and "Phase Analysis of Hydraulic Cements by X-Ray Powder Diffraction: Precision, Bias, and Qualification."
Steve Feldman (steven.feldman [at] nist.gov (steven[dot]feldman[at]nist[dot]gov)) is a Materials Research Engineer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) working on improving measurement techniques for determining the state and rate of alkali-silica reaction in nuclear concrete structures. Before coming to NIST in 2015, he worked as Chief Mineralogist for Barrick Gold Corporation, Director of Research for Active Minerals International, LLC, and in consulting activities for academia, major corporations, and regulatory agencies associated primarily with the minerals, petrochemical, and cement/concrete industries. He is the author of a total of 33 published articles including 2 refereed book chapters, 2 published soil survey reports, 14 reports on original research, 4 refereed technical reports, and 5 patents. He received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Clay Mineralogy and Soil Physical Chemistry from Virginia Tech.
Jeff Bullard (jeffrey.bullard [at] nist.gov (jeffrey[dot]bullard[at]nist[dot]gov)) is a materials research engineer in the Inorganic Materials Group (IMG) of the Materials and Structural Systems Division (MSSD) of the Engineering Laboratory (EL) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Dr. Bullard joined the IMG in April 2002. He is working on the application of thermodynamics, chemical kinetics, and digital-image modeling methods to simulate microstructure development during hydration or degradation of cement pastes and concrete. He is an author of 71 scientific papers, 24 conference proceedings and technical reports, and two invited book chapters. He is a recipient of the 2011 and 2018 Stephen Brunauer Awards and is a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society and the Washington Academy of Sciences.
Alex Brand (asbrand [at] vt.edu (asbrand[at]vt[dot]edu)) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech. From 2016 to 2018 he was a National Research Council Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Materials and Structural Systems Division at NIST. His research interests focus on the development and use of advanced characterization techniques to study the micro- and nanostructure development in cementitious materials, including dissolution kinetics and reaction mechanisms of portland cement minerals. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2015.
Don Broton (dbroton [at] ctlgroup.com (dbroton[at]ctlgroup[dot]com)) has been analyzing cement and related geological materials for nearly 30 years. His primary field of interest is the analysis and evaluation of industrial materials using XRF and XRD methods as well as concrete “reverse composition analysis.” He is chair of ASTM C 01.23 on cement analysis and serves on many other sub-committees for cement, concrete and lime and mortar. He has performed analyses that led to the certification of many cements, limestone, silica fume and gypsum standard reference material for NIST. He also serves on the Denver X-ray Conference Organizing Committee and International Cement Microscopy Organizing committee.
Holiday Inn : Gaithersburg
2 Montgomery Village Avenue, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20879
Hotel Block Rate $125/per night Book now >>>
Block Code: NCC Cutoff Date: 9/29/18
The Holiday Inn provides a shuttle to and from NIST.
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