Cement Carbonation: Microstructure Impact and Transport Properties

This lecture delves into the role of cement microstructure in controlling cement carbonation, focusing on the impact of carbonation on microstructure and transport properties. Dr. Fabien Georget from EPFL explains the experimental setup to study carbonation effects, the changes in porosity and critical radius, and the variations in gas diffusion coefficients for different cement types. The lecture also covers the combined effect of water, carbonation, and transport, highlighting the competition between gas diffusion and drying. Fabien emphasizes the importance of obtaining accurate data to validate models predicting carbonation mechanisms and discusses the challenges in measuring and understanding the evolving microstructure nondestructively.