In engineering practise, interior relative humidity (RH) of concrete significantly affects the transport properties and thus the service life of concrete structures. In this paper, the development of RH due to self-desiccation in blended cement pastes was studied from 1 day to 1.5 years. The pore structure and non-evaporable water content at same ages were determined by mercury intrusion porosimetry and thermogravimetric analysis, respectively. The results revealed that interior RH was significantly reduced at the first 105 days’ curing and falls off slightly afterwards, regardless of water to binder ratios and type of blends. Compared to ordinary Portland cement (OPC) paste, the OPC paste blended with slag shows much lower interior RH, whereas the addition of fly ash slightly increases the interior RH. Minor amount of limestone addition i.e., 5% wt. greatly increases the RH in ternary system consisting of OPC, slag and limestone, whilst slightly decreases the RH in OPC paste blended with fly ash. In the presence of blends, high total porosity corresponds to low interior RH. In case of self-desiccation, it is concluded that interior RH is mainly controlled by average pore size in the cement-based materials.
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