Requirements for cementitious bonding

The essential property of a cementitious material is that it is cohesive. Cohesion is characteristic of a continuous structure, which in the case of a cement implies an isotropic three-dimensional network. Moreover, the network bonds must be attributed to attractions on the molecular level. Increasingly, recent research tends to show that cements are not bonded by interlocking crystallites and that the formation of crystallites is incidental (Steinke et al., 1988 Crisp et al., 1978). The reason is that it is difficult to form rapidly a mass which is both cohesive and highly ordered. 

Cement formation requires a continuous structure to be formed in situ from a large number of nuclei. Moreover, this structure must be maintained despite changes in the character of the bonds. These criteria are, obviously, more easily satisfied by a flexible random structure than by one which is highly-ordered and rigid. Crystallinity implies well-satisfied and rigidly-directed chemical bonds, exact stoichiometry and a highly ordered structure. So unless crystal growth is very slow a continuous molecular structure cannot be formed. 

In random structures, stoichiometry need not be exact and adventitious ions can be incorporated without causing disruption. Bonds are not highly directed, and neighbouring regions of precipitation, formed around different nuclei, can be accommodated within the structure. Continuous networks can be formed rapidly. Thus, random structures are conducive to cement formation and, in fact, most AB cements are essentially amorphous. Indeed, it often appears that the development of crystallinity is detrimental to cement formation. 

There are, however, differences which are best illustrated by reference to the simple example of silica glass and silica gel. In silica glass, Si is four-coordinate and the polymeric links are of the bridging type  

The nature of the association between cement-forming cation and anion is important. As we shall see from theoretical considerations of the nature of acids and bases in section 2.3, these bonds are not completely ionic in character. Also while cement-forming cations are predominantly a- 

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