Engineering Commons^™

Cure-State Monitoring And Water-To-Cement Ratio Determination Of Fresh Portland Cement-Based Materials Using Near-Field Microwave Techniques, Karl Joseph Bois, Aaron D. Benally, Paul S. Nowak, R. Zoughi

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Quick and nondestructive determination of curestate and water-to-cement (w/c) ratio in fresh Portland cementbased materials is an important issue in the construction industry since the compressive strength of these materials is significantly influenced by w/c ratio. This is especially true since current techniques are not reliable and require a priori testing of test specimens as calibration for subsequent on-site monitoring of a cast in-place structure. Recently, the sensing of Portland cementbased materials using microwave techniques has received much attention. Microwave nondestructive techniques have already shown the potential for determining w/c ratio, sand-to-cement (s/c) ratio and coarse aggregate-to-cement (ca/c) ratio in …