Architected Cementitious Cellular Materials: Peculiarities and opportunities

Conventionally, the properties of cementitious materials are tailored by a simple but efficient method: mixture proportion design. For a given cementitious mixture, the chemical and physical properties of cementitious materials have already been determined. Consequently, the mechanical performance of the hardened cementitious material is determined. This is attributed to the nanoscale, microscale and mesoscale structures formed during the hydration process which are also dictated by the mixture proportion. Apart from this traditional methodology, a novel approach to tailor materials mechanical performance by combining architected cellular structure with certain constituent materials is introduced in this work. Inspired by cellular polymer materials and cellular ceramic materials which show enhanced properties comparing to conventional polymers and ceramics, creating cementitious cellular materials is also assumed to be a promising research direction. Specifically, geometrical features of promising cellular structures and their corresponding mechanical performance is reviewed. Potential processing methods for obtaining such cellular structures using cementitious materials are discussed. In addition, probable requirements on cementitious mixture for the cellular structure are analyzed.