A discussion of the paper 'Mercury porosimetry - an inappropriate method for the measurement of pore size distributions in cement-based materials' by S. Diamond

摘要

I fully agree with Prof. Diamond's conclusion that mercury porosimetry is an inappropriate method to be used on cement-based materials. Diamond showed that the Washburn equation could not be applied to study pore characteristics of cement-based materials. I would like to go a little farther than that. Mercury porosimetry has been used, in the cement field, both to measure the total pore volume and pore size distribution. In the following I shall endeavour to show that the measured characteristics (both total pore volume and pore size distribution) of a specimen have no relevance to that of a companion untreated specimen.