Analysis of acoustic emission signature during aluminous cement setting to characterise the mechanical behaviour of the hard material

In this paper, the application of acoustic emission (AE) technique during cement hydration is used to predict the mechanical behaviour of the set material. This non-destructive and in situ method widely used in damage characterisation and more recently, in material process monitoring. It permits the cement hydration to be followed at early age from a few minutes to a few hours after mixing. The AE signals concerning two lots of aluminous cement paste (water to cement weight ratio: 0.4; temperature of measurement: 20 °C) with different ageing conditions were recorded and analysed. Mechanical testing was also conducted on set samples. Based on the experiments, the relationship between the AE features recorded during setting and the mechanical properties of the hard material was emphasised. The results showed that AE technique is a valuable tool to characterise and predict with a quite good reliability the mechanical performance of a set cement from its young age behaviour.