STATISTICAL MODELING OF THE MICROFILLER EFFECT ON THE RHEOLOGY OF COMPOSITE CEMENT PASTES

Experiments were designed based on a so-called uniform-precision facto rial plan to investigate the effect of limestone microfiller replaceme nt of cement on the rheological properties of low w/c ratio superplast icized cement pastes. Cement pastes of different w/b ratios and incorp orating various proportions of limestone powder and/or silica fume wer e assessed in terms of the saturation dosage of superplasticizer using a modified Marsh cone flow time. At a constant flow time, the differe nt cement pastes were further characterized using a coaxial cylinder v iscometer, a mini slump rest and an induced bleeding test. The flow of mortars corresponding to the various cement pastes were also investig ated, and the different rheological tests were compared. The statistic al approach used highlighted the microfiller effect on the various rhe ological characteristics of cement paste, and permitted its modelling over the selected experimental domain.