Packing properties assessment of cement and alternative powders: Artefacts and protocols

This paper introduces three major recommendations for the assessment of the maximum packing fraction of mineral powders through compressive rheology. First, our results show that a minimum compressive stress is required for the measured solid volume fraction to tend towards a constant jamming fraction. Second, we show that the modification of the particles surface properties, especially their friction coefficient, by polymer adsorption, allows for this jamming fraction to get closer to the particle maximum packing fraction. Finally, we show that a minimal value of the initial solid volume fraction of a sample is necessary to prevent particle size separation during testing. We moreover show that the measured jamming fraction depends on the initial solid volume fraction of cement-based samples. We suggest that such a peculiar behavior finds its origin in the dependency of early hydrates volume or morphology on the initial supersaturation.