Smart Portland cement curing and piezoresistive behavior with montmorillonite clay soil contamination

In this study, the effects of up to 5% montmorillonite clay soil contamination on the curing and piezoresistive behavior of the Smart Portland cement was investigated. Smart Portland cement was made by mixing the cement (Type I) with 0.1% conductive filler to enhance the sensing properties. Based on the type of construction, cement might get contaminated with varying amounts of clay soils. Hence, a series of experiments were performed to evaluate the cement behavior with and without up to 5% of montmorillonite clay contamination to determine the effects on the curing, piezoresistivity and strength up to 28 days under two different curing conditions. The test results showed that the montmorillonite clay contamination increased the initial electrical resistivity of the smart Portland cement slurries and also affected the electrical resistivity with curing and the piezoresistive properties of the hardened cement. Vipulanandan p-q models predicted the curing and piezoresistive responses very well.