The hydration of alite: a time-resolved quantitative X-ray diffraction approach using the<i>G</i>-factor method compared with heat release

Abstract

The classical external-standard method derived from the work of O'Connor &amp; Raven [ Powder Diffr. (1988), 3 , 2–6] was used to examine the hydration of the major phase, alite, of ordinary Portland cements at different temperatures and different water/alite ratios. In order to estimate the accuracy of the method, heat-flow curves were calculated from the alite dissolution curves obtained from X-ray diffraction in situ experiments. The heat-flow curves calculated in this way were compared with heat-flow curves recorded using a calorimeter. It is shown that the calculated curves agree well with the curves obtained from heat-flow experiments.