Quantitative Imaging of Clinker and Cement Microstructure

Œe combination of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with X-ray microanalysis and image processing provides a powerful ability to image and quantify microstructural features of construction materials. Œis document provides guidance for collecting backscaŠered electron images and X-ray element maps of polished sections of Portland cement clinker. It furnishes step-by-step procedures for processing image data to produce segmentation of an image €eld into its constituent mineral phases, and describes ways use the segmented image to measure the abundance, surface area, and spatial distribution of phases in the image €eld. Inherent heterogeneity of the microstructure implies that di‚erent image €elds of the same material will contain di‚erent phase abundances; the document suggests ways to estimate and compensate for the heterogeneity length scale through statistical analysis of multiple image €elds. and analysis using a scanning electron microscope will be illustrated using an example from the development of Standard Reference Materials for portland cement clinker.