Estimation of actual pore-size distribution by inverse analysis of mercury intrusion

Intrusion curves under mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) severely underestimate pore sizes below the actual pore-size distribution (APSD), owing to the ink-bottle effect, producing difficulties in interpreting the dominant pore structure in various performances of concrete. This study proposes a method to estimate APSD from a MIP intrusion curve for understanding the pore structure accurately and easily. A model for calculating the volume of the ink-bottle pores was derived and incorporated into the inverse analysis system to obtain the APSD through a three-dimensional intrusion simulation. The APSD estimation results of the proposed and existing methods agreed well.