Hydrating cement pastes as a complex disordered system

In small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) experiments, realized on the MURN facility of the pulsed reactor IBR-2 of the Frank Laboratory of Neutron Physics at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, the hydration processes in samples of ordinary Portland cement and single clinker minerals are studied. The measured scattering curve contains information about the fractal behaviour of the interfaces and the size distribution of the scattering particles. Furthermore, a variation of the heavy and light water composition for the hydration water supports the selection of the observable microstructural objects. In dependence on the size distribution of the clinker grains a various time-dependent behaviour of the potential law of the scattering curve is shown. Considering the SANS results of hydrating OPC the exponents of the scattering curve in a given Q-range are varying in dependence on the hydration time and sample thickness. They lie in an interval from about -2 to -4. This is beli eved to be associated