I.

Introduction

HARDENED portland cement paste (hcp), the binder compo- Hnent of portland cement concrete,
occurs in relatively thin zones (several hundred micrometers thick) between sand and coarse
aggregate (rock) particles. For simplicity, laboratory studies are often carried out on separately
prepared hcp mixed and cured without sand or coarse aggregate. Such preparations are known to
display microstructural features similar to those of hcp in concrete. Scanning electron microscope
(SEM) studies of the microstructure of hcp in various cement pastes have been carried out for a
number of years by various workers,’“ primarily using the secondary electron mode. Specimen
preparation has mostly been as fracture surface mounts, although doubts have been raised as to
the representatives of the surfaces so produced. More recently, plane polished surface mounts
examined in the backscattered electron mode have been shown by several workers (for example,
Refs. 7-9) to provide useful quantitative and qualitative information. Backscattered SEM provides
representative surfacesand permits a much more revealing picture of the individual textural
features in hcp to be obtained. It therefore permits a much greater appreciation of their spatial
relationships andjuxtapositions. Furthermore, with such specimens the ability to carry out
accurate and fully corrected chemical analyses of individual features by energy-dispersive X-ray
analysis (EDXA) permits a much closer appreciation of differences in chemical compositions of the
various morphological features that are found. Despite the large number of microstructural
studies of hcp, its various features cannot be described unequivocally, as there are no adequate
descriptive terms. The terms inner and outer products are genetic terms and are poorly suited as
descriptive terms, as are the terms lute and undesignutedproducts (see discussion item 6). In our
opinion the lack of descriptive nomenclature constrains and prevents detailed description and
understanding of the hcp microstructure. In this paper we have attempted to provide a new
description of what we consider to be important features of the structure of hcp. None of the
individual features discussed is new, except perhaps for certain details of the groundmass.
However, we propose a radically new but hopefully appropriate nomenclature and classification
for the entities described, and illustrate this by specific micrographs. The objective is to provide a
framework for a more realistic understanding of the structure of hcp and, subsequently, for
helping to interpret the properties of this material in terms of structure. In this work, in addition to
a large number of micrographs, several hundred fully ZAF-corrected EDX analyses have been
carried out on representative individual features of the classes defined here. These analyses and
the insights derived from them will be addressed in a subsequent publication.