• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2010.05a
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• pp.199-200
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• 2010

This paper was estimated the diffusion coefficient through the chlorine ion diffusion coefficient of the high fluidity concrete using the limestone powder. Also, the micro void of high fluidity concrete examined according to the mixing ratio of the limestone powder by the mercury intrusion porosimetry.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.431-439
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• 2020

Soil-water retention curve (SWRC) contains key information for the application of unsaturated soil mechanics principles to engineering practice. The SWRC variables are commonly used to describe the hydro-mechanics of soils. Generally, these parameters are determined using the graphical method which can be time consuming. The SWRC is highly dependent on the pore size distribution (PSD). Theoretically, the PSD obtained by mercury intrusion porosimetry test can be used to determine some SWRC variables. Moreover, the relationship between SWRC and shrinkage curve has been investigated. A new method to determine total SWRC variables directly without curve-fitting procedure is proposed. Substituting the variables into linear SWRC equations construct SWRC. A good agreement was obtained between predicted and measured SWRCs, indicating the validity of the proposed method for unimodal SWRC.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.245-246
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• 2012

The analysis of microstructure is essential to understand the material behavior such as shrinkage, strength, and permeability. In this study, three different easy-to-apply specimen preparation methods for the mercury intrusion analysis were chosen, and their effectiveness in removing pore water and thus impeding further hydration was evaluated. As a result, it was found that the direct freeze-drying was the most effective among the three methods.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.17-38
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• 2010

This research aimed to investigate the influence of high-volume mineral admixtures (MAs), i.e., fly ash and slag, on the hydration characteristics and microstructures of cement pastes. Degree of cement hydration was quantified by the loss-on-ignition technique and degree of pozzolanic reaction was determined by a selective dissolution method. The influence of MAs on the pore structure of paste was measured by mercury intrusion porosimetry. The results showed that the hydration properties of the blended pastes were a function of water to binder ratio, cement replacement level by MAs, and curing age. Pastes containing fly ash exhibited strongly reduced early strength, especially for mix with 45% fly ash. Moreover, at a similar cement replacement level, slag incorporated cement paste showed higher degrees of cement hydration and pozzolanic reaction than that of fly ash incorporated cement paste. Thus, the present study demonstrates that high substitution rates of slag for cement result in better effects on the short- and long-term hydration properties of cement pastes.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.817-820
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• 2006

This study investigated on the differentiation of microstructure of blast furnace slag concrete(BBSC) using Mercury Intrusion Porosimetry(MIP). From the test result, it was found that the BBSC did not show shortcomings of high temperature curing. The BBSC gives more fineness microstructure than that of plain concrete when it is cured same curing condition. The curing age making stable structure to poor surroundings was 28, 14, 7 days for blast furnace concrete cured at 5, 20, $30^{\circ}C$, respectively.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.317-336
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• 2013

In this study, the pore structure of Portland cement paste is experimentally characterized by MIP (mercury intrusion porosimetry) and nitrogen adsorption, and simulated by a newly developed status-oriented computer model. Cement pastes with w/c=0.3, 0.4 and 0.5 at ages from 1 day to 120 days are comprehensively investigated. It is found that MIP cannot generate valid pore size distribution curves for cement paste. Nevertheless, nitrogen adsorption can give much more realistic pore size distribution curves of small capillary pores, and these curves follow the same distribution mode. While, large capillary pores can be effectively characterized by the newly developed computer model, and the validity of this model has been proved by BSE imaging plus image analysis. Based on the experimental findings and numerical simulation, a hypothesis is proposed to explain the formation mechanism of the capillary pore system, and the realistic representation of the pore structure of hydrated cement paste is established.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.53 no.1
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• pp.23-32
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• 2020

Geological CO₂ sequestration is a global warming response technology to limit atmospheric emissions by injecting CO₂ captured on a large scale into deep geological formations. The presented results concern mineralogical and hydrogeological investigations (FE-SEM, XRD, XRF, and MICP) of mudstone samples from drilling cores of the Pohang basin, which is the research area for the first demonstration-scale CO₂ storage project in Korea. They aim to identify the mineral properties of the mudstone constituting the caprock and to quantitatively evaluate the hydrogeologic sealing capacity that directly affects the stability and reliability of geological CO₂ storage. Mineralogical analysis showed that the mudstone samples are mainly composed of quartz, K-feldspar, plagioclase and a small amount of pyrite, calcite, clay minerals, etc. Mercury intrusion capillary pressure analysis also showed that the samples generally had uniform particle configurations and pore distribution and there was no distinct correlation between the estimated porosity and air permeability. The allowable CO₂ column heights based on the estimated pore-entry pressures and breakthrough pressures were found to be significantly higher than the thickness of the targeting CO₂ injection layer. These results showed that the mudstone layers in the Yeongil group, Pohang basin, Korea have sufficient sealing capacity to suppress the leakage of CO₂ injected during the demonstration-scale CO₂ storage project. It should be noticed, however, that the applicability of results and analyses in this study is limited by the lack of available samples. For rigorous assessment of the sealing efficiency for geological CO₂ storage operations, significant efforts on collection and multi-aspect evaluation for core samples over entire caprock formations should be accompanied.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.275-281
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• 2017

This study examined the effect of water-to-binder ratio (W/B) and phosphate-to-binder ratio (P/B) on the flow, setting time, compressive strength development, and pH variation of magnesium-potassium phosphate composites, MKPC mortars. Ten mortars mixtures were prepared with the W/B varying from 20% to 40% at each P/B of 0.3 or 0.5. The hydration products and microstructural pore distribution of the MKPC pastes were investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP). The initial flow and setting time of MKPC mortars tended to decrease with an increase of P/B, indicating that the final setting time was shortened by approximately 24% when P/B increased from 0.3 to 0.5. The slope of the early-strength development measured in the MKPC mortars was considerably higher than that of cement concrete specified in code provisions. For obtaining a relatively good 28-day strength (above 30 MPa) and a near neutral pH (below 9.0) in MKPC mortars, the P/B and W/B need to be selected as 0.5 and 30%, respectively. The strubite-K crystal increased with the increases of P/B and W/B, which leads to the decrease of the macro-capillary pores.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.499-506
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• 2007

According to the high demand of concrete structures with high performance, various studies have examined on the high performance concrete, especially high strength concrete. Various admixtures are required to produce high strength concrete and silica fume has been the most popular admixture. Recently, however, metakaolin, which is similar to silica fume in properties but cheaper, has been introduced to high strength concrete. In this study, high-strength concrete using metakaolin were studied of capillary pore structure by mercury intrusion porosimetry technique and the accelerated chloride diffusivity by electrical difference. In result, it was found that the pore structure improved and compressive strength increased and chloride diffusivity reduced as more metakaolin content was added. In addition, a regression analysis of $5{\sim}2,000nm$ pore volume and both compression strength and chloride diffusivity revealed that each these had a high correlation of about 0.76 and 0.68.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.101-107
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• 2017

This study aimed to conduct the basic analysis on the fractal characteristics of cementitious materials. The pore structure of cement paste incorporating ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) was measured using mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) and the fractal characteristics were investigated using different models. Because the pore structure of GGBFS-blended cement paste is an irregular system in the various range from nanometer to millimeter, the characteristics of pore region in the different scale may not be adequately described when the fractal dimension was calculated over the whole scale range. While Zhang and Li model enabled analyzing the fraction dimension of pore structure over the three divided scale ranges of micro, small capillary and macro regions, Ji el al. model refined analysis on the fractal characteristics of micro pore region consisting of micro I region corresponding to gel pores and micro II region corresponding to small capillary pores. As the pore size decreased, both models suggested that the pore surface of micro region became more irregular than macro region and the complexity of pores increased.