A robust homogenization method for ageing and non-ageing viscoelastic behavior of early age and hardened cement pastes

Abstract This paper aims to develop a robust homogenization scheme for the viscoelastic behavior of early age and hardened cement pastes. The short-term creep of early age cement and the short- and long-term creeps of hardened cement are modeled by the non-ageing viscoelastic behavior. The ageing creep at early age is modeled by considering the evolution of the microstructure during the hydration process. This model offers a practical technique to predict the ageing creep at early age from data of non-ageing creep at the hardened state, and vice versa. It is also able to describe the creep behavior of a paste with certain water to cement ratio from data of a paste with another water to cement ratio. It is well validated against a large variety of the most relevant data available in literature and provides a great potential of application in practice.