Research on structure modulation of alite and its effect on the mechanical properties of cement clinker

This paper explored the structural modulation of alite in cement clinkers doped with high content of MgO and a series amount of SO₃. The effect of alite polymorph on compressive strength had also been studied. The results showed that high content of MgO stabilized M3 type alite while the increase of doped SO₃ could gradually modulated the polymorph to M1 type. M1 type alite had an incommensurate modulation along pseudo-hexagonal subcell [2-10]_H^* direction while M3 type alite hadn't appeared this characteristic. A new incommensurate modulation was found in M1-type alite along the pseudo-hexagonal subcell [017-]_H^* direction. Quantitative analysis results showed there was a nonlinear correlation between SO₃/MgO and alite content in clinkers which could be well fitted by the parabola curve. SO₃/MgO and M1 alite content in C₃S ([Formula Presented]) showed a linear relationship. The compressive strength of clinkers was affected by both polymorph and content of alite. The correlation between the polymorph, content of alite and compressive strength of clinkers was determined by Multiple linear regression analysis.