Effective properties of a fly ash geopolymer: Synergistic application of X-ray synchrotron tomography, nanoindentation, and homogenization models

Journal Article · Tue Dec 15 04:00:00 EST 2015 · Cement and Concrete Research

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/J.CEMCONRES.2015.08.004· OSTI ID:22696532

Das, Sumanta; Yang, Pu ^[1]; Singh, Sudhanshu S.; Mertens, James C.E. ^[2]; Xiao, Xianghui ^[3]; Chawla, Nikhilesh ^[2]; Neithalath, Narayanan ^[1]

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1. School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ (United States)
2. Materials Science and Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ (United States)
3. Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL (United States)

Microstructural and micromechanical investigation of a fly ash-based geopolymer using: (i) synchrotron X-ray tomography (XRT) to determine the volume fraction and tortuosity of pores that are influential in fluid transport, (ii) mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) to capture the volume fraction of smaller pores, (iii) scanning electron microscopy (SEM) combined with multi-label thresholding to identify and characterize the solid phases in the microstructure, and (iv) nanoindentation to determine the component phase elastic properties using statistical deconvolution, is reported in this paper. The phase volume fractions and elastic properties are used in multi-step mean field homogenization (Mori–Tanaka and double inclusion) models to determine the homogenized macroscale elastic modulus of the composite. The homogenized elastic moduli are in good agreement with the flexural elastic modulus determined on macroscale paste beams. The combined use of microstructural and micromechanical characterization tools at multiple scales provides valuable information towards the material design of fly ash geopolymers.

• OSTI ID: 22696532
• Journal Information: Cement and Concrete Research, Journal Name: Cement and Concrete Research Journal Issue: Part B Vol. 78; ISSN 0008-8846; ISSN CCNRAI
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
ELASTICITY
ELECTRON SCANNING
FLY ASH
MEAN-FIELD THEORY
MICROSTRUCTURE
SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPY
SYNCHROTRONS
TOMOGRAPHY
X RADIATION