Fluid Permeability of Ground Steel Slag-Blended Composites Evaluated by Pore Structure

The resource utilization of steel slag has attracted wide attention. In the present work, the pore structure of cement paste with and without ground basic oxygen furnace slag (BOFS) up to 180 days was investigated by mercury intrusion porosimetry. Permeability was evaluated from the tested pore structure. Results indicate that the porosity, critical pore radius, pore-throat radius, and permeability are increased with the BOFS content and levels off after 28 days. Lower gel porosity and higher coarse capillary porosity were observed in BOFS-blended composites. The calculated permeability (around 0.30–7.49 × 10−19 m2) based on the pore structure agrees well with the range of reported experimental measurements. Well-correlated linear and power-law relationship was noticed between permeability and porosity and characteristic pore radius, respectively.