Chloride diffusivity in hardened cement paste from microscale analyses and accounting for binding effects.

The diffusion of chloride ions in hardened cement paste (HCP) under steady-state conditions and accounting for the highly heterogeneous nature of the material is investigated. The HCP microstructures are obtained through segmentation of X-ray images of real samples as well as from simulations using the cement hydration model CEMHYD3D. Moreover, the physical and chemical interactions between chloride ions and HCP phases (binding), along with their effects on the diffusive process, are explicitly taken into account. The homogenized diffusivity of the HCP is then derived through a least square homogenization technique. Comparisons between numerical results and experimental data from the literature are presented.