Assessing hydration disturbances from concrete aggregates with radiation shielding properties by isothermal calorimetry

Spallation sources create a large amount of neutrons with energies up to the GeV range. To shield for these neutrons, steel and concrete are important materials. By adding different aggregates to normal concrete, one can improve the shielding effect of the concrete. Some of these aggregates can influence the rate of hydration (reaction) of the cement or even completely inhibit the hydration. It is thus good practice to start the investigation of new shielding concretes by assessing the rate of cement hydration in the presence of new aggregates. This is preferably made with isothermal (heat conduction) calorimetry. In this paper we describe such tests made with a large number of different potential aggregates for a shielding concrete. We found a full range of influence on the hydration, from no influence to severely disturbed. In some cases smaller particles gave more disturbance.