Cavitation of water in hardened cement paste under short-term desorption measurements

Water vapor sorption isotherm measurement is one of the promising techniques to understand the microstructure of hardened cement paste, because it always gives a higher surface area than sorption isotherm measurements performed with other adsorbents such as nitrogen and argon, which implies that water molecules can probe the widest range of the microstructure of hardened cement pastes. When, at 20 °C, the water sorption measurement is conducted such as to last for a few days, a characteristic behavior—a sudden drop in adsorbed amount around a relative humidity of 0.35—is always observed on the desorption branch. Here, we prove that this sudden drop is caused by water cavitation, based on an analysis of experimental sorption isotherms acquired at various temperatures, scanning isotherms, and length-change isotherms. Cavitation in hardened cement paste is likely to occur in the C–S–H gel pores constricted by the C–S–H interlayer space.