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Porosity in Cement Paste

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The porosity of concrete is a measure of the void spaces within its structure. These spaces impact its strength and durability significantly. When water and cement interact, a chemical reaction called hydration creates a semi-solid paste. This paste includes combined water, making up approximately 23% of the cement's dry mass, and gel water, which fills minuscule voids known as gel pores, accounting for about 28% of the cement gel volume.
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Mar 19, 2026

Visualization of Failure and the Associated Grain-Scale Mechanical Behavior of Granular Soils under Shear using Synchrotron X-Ray Micro-Tomography
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Microstructure, Transport, and Mechanics of Compacted Clay Simulated at the 0.1 μm Scale (1400 Smectite Clay

Xiaojin Zheng1, Ian C Bourg1,2

  • 1Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, United States.

The Journal of Physical Chemistry. C, Nanomaterials and Interfaces
|March 18, 2026
PubMed
Summary

Coarse-grained simulations bridge the scale gap in clay geomaterials, revealing how compaction and ion composition influence microstructure and transport properties. This advances understanding of clay-rich systems for geotechnical and environmental applications.

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Area of Science:

  • Geotechnical Engineering
  • Materials Science
  • Computational Science

Background:

  • Clay-rich geomaterials are crucial for subsurface systems, with properties dependent on molecular interactions at clay-water interfaces.
  • A significant scale gap exists between atomistic (nm) and continuum (μm) simulations for predicting clay behavior.
  • Existing simulation methods struggle to capture the mesoscale heterogeneity of compacted clays.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To present a coarse-grained (CG) simulation framework to bridge the scale gap in clay geomaterials.
  • To investigate the microstructure, pore networks, and transport properties of compacted smectite clay.
  • To evaluate the influence of dry density and counterion composition on emergent clay properties.

Main Methods:

  • Developed a coarse-grained (CG) simulation framework for compacted smectite clay assemblages (0.1 μm).
  • Simulated systems with varying dry densities (1,050–1,850 kg·m⁻³) and Na/Ca counterion compositions (Na fraction 0.2–1).
  • Reconstructed 3D pore networks to analyze microstructure, pore size distribution, tortuosity, ion diffusivity, and swelling pressure.

Main Results:

  • The CG approach captured mesoscale heterogeneity, including tactoid formation, hierarchical porosity, and anisotropic pore networks.
  • Compaction and counterion composition were shown to govern dominant pore sizes, directional transport, and electrochemical response.
  • Simulations provided insights into emergent behaviors of compacted clays at the 0.1 μm scale.

Conclusions:

  • Coarse-grained simulations effectively bridge the molecular and continuum scales for clay-rich geomaterials.
  • This framework advances geotechnical and environmental applications involving clays, geopolymers, and calcium-silicate-hydrate.
  • Accurate prediction of some properties, like swelling pressure, may necessitate larger simulation scales (≈1 μm).