A flexible homogenization method for the effective elastic properties of cement pastes with w/c effect

Abstract In this paper, the dynamic and static elastic properties of cement pastes with a large range of water to cement (w/c) ratios were modeled for the whole hydration range from 0 to 1. A flexible homogenization scheme is developed for transferring from one w/c ratio to another. This scheme considers a reference matrix that changes flexibly with respect to the microstructure change. It allows predicting the elastic properties of a paste by considering data of a reference paste of which the hydration condition and the microstructure are close to the considering paste. The model is calibrated and validated against a large variety of relevant data given in literature.