New Insights into the Prehydration of Cement and Its Mitigation

Published

January 27, 2015

Author(s)

Julyan Stoian, Tandre Oey, Jeffrey W. Bullard, Jian Huang, Aditya Kumar, Magdalena Balonis, Judith E. Terrill, Narayanan Neithalath, Gaurav Sant

Abstract

Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) prehydrates during storage or handling in moist environments, forming hydration products on or near its particles' surfaces. Prehydration is known to reduce OPC reactivity, but the extent of prehydration has not yet been quantitatively linked to reaction rate and mechanical property changes. A series of experiments are performed to develop a better understanding of prehydration, by intentionally exposing an OPC powder to either water vapor or liquid water, to investigate the extent to which premature contact of OPC with water and other potential reactants in the liquid and/or vapor state(s) can induce differing surface modifications on the OPC grains. Original results obtained using isothermal calorimetry, thermogravimetric analysis and strength measurements are correlated to a prehydration index, which is defined for the first time. The addition of fine limestone to a mixture formed using prehydrated cement is shown to mitigate the detrimental effects of prehydration.

Citation

Cement and Concrete Research

Volume

70

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

cement, limestone, prehydration, computer simulation, physisorption, nucleation

Citation

Stoian, J. , Oey, T. , Bullard, J. , Huang, J. , Kumar, A. , Balonis, M. , Terrill, J. , Neithalath, N. and Sant, G. (2015), New Insights into the Prehydration of Cement and Its Mitigation, Cement and Concrete Research, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=915565 (Accessed October 9, 2025)