In this study, the combination of microindentation and 3D optical microscopy is studied to determine the mechanical properties of the cement pastes of pristine and irradiated mortars. It is shown that using optical microscopy information on top of statistical indentation…
In this study, the combination of microindentation and 3D optical microscopy is studied to determine the mechanical properties of the cement pastes of pristine and irradiated mortars. It is shown that using optical microscopy information on top of statistical indentation technique and classification algorithms, the disadvantages of both techniques can be partly reduced and the mechanical properties attributed to the cement paste are refined. That way, some insights on the degradation mechanisms of dry cementitious materials under low dose γ-irradiations have been proposed, e.g. a significant increase of the hardness and the creep modulus after 257 kGy, which means that irradiated cement paste creeps less than pristine ones.