The theoretical maximum achievable dispersion of nanoinclusions in cement paste

A major challenge of successfully incorporating nanometric inclusions (nanoinclusions) within cement paste is achieving a uniform distribution of the nanoinclusions. Cement particles have a larger diameter than the average spacing between nanoinclusions when the nanoinclusions are fully dispersed, which means that the presence of cement particles in the fresh paste degrades the maximum achievable dispersion of the nanoinclusions in the hardened paste. To determine the significance of this effect, a novel method for dispersion quantification was implemented to calculate the theoretical maximum achievable dispersion of nanoinclusions in fresh cement paste. Three-dimensional simulations were performed for cement pastes with common values of water to cement ratio, nanoinclusion to cement ratio, and cement fineness. The results show that for cementitious nanocomposites simulated in this study, degradation of the maximum theoretical achievable dispersion of nanoinclusions due to the presence of cement particles is negligible as long as the cement particles are not agglomerated.