Estimation of the thermal properties of hardened cement paste on the basis of guarded heat flow meter measurements

In the present study, a new analysis method is proposed to measure thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity, volumetric specific heat capacity, and specific heat capacity of cement-based materials based on the guarded heat flow meter apparatus. We tested hydrated cement paste specimens with 0.4 water-to-cement ratio and applied both steady and non-steady state data to compute thermal properties of the hydrated cement paste. Thermal conductivity and thermal contact resistance were determined as 1.28 W m(-1) K-1 and 0.038 m(-2) KW-1 using steady state data. Furthermore, using a computerized system of heat flow meters and non-linear regression, we used non-steady state data to measure thermal diffusivity, volumetric specific heat capacity and specific heat capacity of the hydrated cement paste as 4.77 x 10(-7) m(2) s(-1), 2685.4 kJ m(-3) K-1, and 1.28 kJ kg(-1) K-1. The relative uncertainties of these properties fell within 2-7% range and the residual distributions were validated to follow a normal distribution based on quantile-quantile tests. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.