Fractal and multifractal analysis on pore structure in cement paste

•We perform fractal and multifractal analysis on cement paste.•The fractal dimension depends linearly on porosity.•The multifractal spectrum accounts for more structural details.

The capillary pore structure in cement paste is critical to the transport property, to which various durability problems of concrete are closely related. A novel characterization of pore structure in cement paste has to account for its intrinsic heterogeneity, i.e., the disordered porous media. In this paper, we present some results about the application of fractal and multifractal analysis on simulated pore structure of cement paste, where some hydration factors including the water to cement ratio and the degree of cement hydration are discussed in terms of the fractal dimension and the multifractal spectrum. Results indicate that the concepts of fractal and multifractal are feasible in characterizing the heterogeneity of pore structure in cement paste. Moreover, it is confirmed that compared to the fractal concept, the multifractal concept allows a relatively more reasonable characterization, where the size distribution and the spatial arrangement of pore are addressed without any priori assumptions.