Blastfurnace slag cements:: A construction material with very unusual nuclear spin relaxation behavior during hardening

In this contribution, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) relaxometry results on hardening hydraulically activated blastfurnace slag pastes are presented. The results are found to be very different from the behavior of other hydraulic building materials such as cement and gypsum. A mechanism based on water diffusion in inner field gradients is suggested in order to explain the observed relaxation behavior and corroborated by additional experimental evidence from magnetic susceptibility measurements and NMR relaxation measurements on slag pastes prepared from nonwatery fluids. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(00)05518-3].