Wet creep of hardened hydraulic cements - Example of gypsum plaster and implication for hydrated Portland cement

Gypsum plaster exhibits a dramatic creep when placed in a very humid environment. We have combined mechanical tests of wet bending creep of set plaster and holographic interferometry measurements of dissolution rate and diffusion coefficient to look for the origin of this wet creep. Both these experiments have been performed in the absence and presence of various known anti-creep admixtures. It appears that the creep rate and dissolution rate are strongly correlated. This correlation has allowed to propose surface-driven pressure solution creep as mechanism of wet creep of gypsum plaster, i.e., the sequence dissolution in the grain boundary water/diffusion/precipitation at the grain surface. An order of magnitude analysis shows that this dissolution-diffusion-recrystallization series can also contribute to the creep of hydrated Portland cement.