Visualized tracing of capillary absorption process in cementitious material based on X ray computed tomography

Moisture is one of the major deterioration factors of concrete. In this study, the capillary absorption process, which is one of the major transportation mechanism in cement paste, is non-destructively investigated by using X-ray computed tomography (XCT). A novel image processing procedure is proposed to correct the XCT image artifacts and calibrate the results of different measurements. The proposed image processing procedure allows for 3D visualization of the absorption process and additional information can be obtained, including the height of the water absorption front and the water content gradient.