Capillary rheology of extruded cement-based materials

Extrusion processing is a technique used to produce high-performance fiber-reinforced cement-based composites (HPFRCC), which has shown great promise for manufacturing materials that are strong, ductile, durable, design versatile and environmentally friendly. Despite these advantages, extrusion is still primarily limited to laboratory-scale work. One reason this technology has not been adopted by industry is the high cost of the cellulose ether processing aids that are required for extrusion. In this research, the possibility of partially replacing cellulose ethers with less expensive clay binders is investigated. Extrudable and not extrudable mixes are identified and capillary rheology is used to describe the theological parameters of the various mixes. The results indicate that clay binders can be used as a partial replacement for cellulose ethers and that capillary theology can be used to describe extrudability.