Next: List of Figures
Dale P. Bentz and Glenn P. Forney
Building and Fire Research Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8621
This NISTIR serves as the user's manual for Version 1.0 of the Virtual Cement and Concrete Testing Laboratory (VCCTL). Using the VCCTL, a user may create starting microstructures of cement (gypsum, fly ash, etc.) particles in water, hydrate the microstructures under controlled curing conditions, leach the portlandite and remaining cement clinker phases from hydrated microstructures, view images and animations of 3-D microstructures, and/or evaluate a variety of properties of hydrated/leached microstructures for direct comparison to experimental data. The VCCTL includes a web-based interface that provides a menu-driven system of forms for obtaining user input and returning results. Two example applications of using the VCCTL to study specific scenarios of interest to the cement-based materials research community are also presented.
Keywords: Building technology, cement hydration, computer modeling, concrete testing, microstructure, simulation, virtual laboratory.