Portlandite content and ionic transport properties of hydrated C3S pastes

This paper presents the results of a C3S paste characterization study. The objective was to determine the parameters needed to model the process of degradation. The experimental study focused on determining the portlandite content and the ionic diffusion coefficients of C3S paste. The molar C/S ratio of C–S–H in hydrated C3S pastes was also investigated. The portlandite content was determined with an experimental method based on an electron microprobe analysis. This method leads to a portlandite mass content of 24.4 ± 2.3%. The diffusion coefficient of each ionic species was determined by inverse analysis of diffusion test data performed on hydrated C3S samples using a multiionic transport model.