Serial Sectioning of Hardened Cement Paste for Scanning Electron Microscopy

摘要

Serial sectioning is a technique of making and examining thin sections of material to obtain information on three-dimensional structures from a series of two-dimensional images. Procedures were developed to make serial sections of hardened cement paste by the removal of thin layers by polishing. Backscattered electron imaging of the remaining paste block was used to record the paste microstructure after each section was removed. Procedures developed cover the polishing practice, the removal of thin layers by polishing, the estimation of layer thickness, and the location and alignment of specific regions for imaging.