Measurement of cement setting by impedance monitoring

Cement setting can be monitored by electrical impedance measurement in broad frequency range by using different containers or sample probes. The present work describes two new measurement methods that do not require any special sample holder nor any sample preparation. One method measures cement paste conductivity during setting in the 1 kHz to 100 kHz frequency range. The other method measures cement paste permittivity from 10 MHz to 1 GHz. Both methods use an electrode configuration that allows in situ monitoring. The conductivity method is less error-prone and easier to implement, and allows us, for instance, to quantify the effect of superplasticizers.