This paper presents an experimental investigation on the short-term creep recovery of cement paste at micrometre length scale. Micro-cantilever beams were fabricated and tested with 8 different loading series using the nanoindenter. It is found that cement pastes show high recovery ratios (>80%) even subjected to very high stress levels. Relatively lower recovery ratios and non-linear creep were also observed for w/c 0.4 samples under high stress levels. A good agreement is found between the results predicted using the linear superposition principle and the experimental results except for the measured non-linear creep in w/c 0.4 samples. It is suggested that the short-term creep recovery may be associated with the microscale stress redistribution or the reversible internal water movement. The observed non-linear creep under the highest stress level may be due to the higher density of microcracks generated during the loading stage, which may further promote the water transfer.

本文介绍了在微米长度尺度上水泥浆的短期蠕变恢复的实验研究。微悬臂梁被制造并使用纳米压痕仪以 8 种不同的加载系列进行测试。发现水泥浆即使在非常高的应力水平下也显示出高恢复率 (>80%)。在高应力水平下，w/c 0.4 样品也观察到相对较低的恢复率和非线性蠕变。除了在 w/c 0.4 样品中测得的非线性蠕变外，使用线性叠加原理预测的结果与实验结果之间存在良好的一致性。这表明短期蠕变恢复可能与微尺度应力重新分布或可逆的内部水运动有关。