Rheological properties of mortars prepared with different sands

Abstract

The principal aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of sand grading, surface morphology, and content on the rheological properties—that is, yield stress and plastic viscosity—of fresh mortar. Mortars were produced from four different types of sand at two volumetric cement-sand ratios of 1/0.9 and 1/0.6. Each blend was prepared with five water-cement ratios of 0.60, 0.55, 0.50, 0.45, and 0.40. The rheometer was used to determine yield stress and plastic viscosity parameters of each cement paste and mortar. Test results show that the relative yield stress and plastic viscosity of mortar to cement paste is inversely proportional to the excess paste thickness up to low values, below which the surface texture of sand particles becomes significant.