Film-forming ability of flowable cement pastes and its application in mixture proportioning of pervious concrete

[Display omitted] •The concept of paste film-forming ability is introduced.•Two paste film-forming ability test methods were developed.•The effect of w/c ratio and superplasticizer dose on film-forming ability is studied.•The effect of aggregate properties on paste film-forming ability is explained. In this paper, the concept of paste film-forming ability is introduced as a parameter for mixture proportioning of pervious concrete. Two new test methods are also developed. The two methods characterize film-forming ability in two conditions. The first method characterizes the ability of a cement paste to form a stable film on a smooth nonabsorbent vertical surface. The paste thickness measured from this test is called, Ideal PasteThickness (IPT). The second test characterizes the ability of cement paste to adhere and remain on an aggregate surface; this paste thickness is called ActualPasteThickness (APT). The IPT can be used as a standardized parameter to evaluate the film-forming ability of cement pastes. The APT can be used to study the formation of cement paste films on pervious concrete aggregates. In this study IPT and APT of sixteen superplasticized cement pastes were evaluated. The pastes were prepared from four water to cement (w/c) ratios (0.23, 0.27, 0.32 and 0.37).