Jeffrey J. Thomas

Jeffrey J. Thomas

Research Associate Professor

A220 Technological Institute
2145 Sheridan Rd. Evanston, IL 60208-3109

E-mail address: jthomas@northwestern.edu
Phone: (847) 491-4997
Fax: 011(847) 491-4011

Curriculum Vitae:

Education

• B.S., Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University
• Ph.D., Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University

Research

Concrete made from Portland cement is the world's most widely used manmade material. My general area of research is the materials science of cement; that is, studying relationships between processing, microstructure, and engineering properties. To gain insights into the microstructure development process, I use mathematical and digital models in tandem with experimental measurements to study the kinetics of the reactions between cement and water, in particular the nucleation and growth process that leads to early strength development and concrete setting. This research is resulting in a better understanding of the effects of chemical additives.

Another aspect of my research is the application of scattering techniques such as small-angle neutron and x-ray scattering (SANS and SAXS) and quasi-elastic neutron scattering (QENS) to the study of cement-based materials, in collaboration with researchers at Northwestern and NIST. We recently developed a novel SANS-based method for measuring the composition and density of the solid calcium-silicate hydrate (C-S-H) gel nanoparticles that are the basic building blocks of cement and concrete.

Teaching Activities

• GEN_ENG 205-2 Engineering Analysis II
• GEN_ENG 206-2 Honors Engineering Analysis II
• CIV_ENG_212 Mechanics
• CIV_ENG 216 Mechanics of Materials

Honors and Awards

1. Brunauer Award, American Ceramic Society (Best paper on cements, 2008)
2. Faculty Coordinator, Gateway Science Workshop Program (2005-present)
3. Chair, Cements Division of the American Ceramic Society (2005/2006)
4. NSF Workshop on Cement Hydration Kinetics, Quebec (Invited Speaker, 2009)
5. Workshop on Multiscale Modeling of Cementitious Materials, Bilbao, Spain (Keynote Speaker, 2009)
6. NIST Cement Modeling Workshop (Invited Lecturer, 2006, 2007, 2008)
7. American Conference on Neutron Scattering (Invited Speaker, 2008)

Selected Publications

Click here for papers in pdf format

• "Hydration kinetics and microstructure development of normal and CaCl2-accelerated tricalcium silicate (C3S) pastes" (J.J. Thomas, A.J. Allen, H.M. Jennings) Journal of Physical Chemistry C (2009) 113, pp. 19836-19844.
• "Influence of nucleation seeding on the hydration mechanisms of tricalcium silicate and cement" (J.J. Thomas, H.M. Jennings, J.J. Chen) Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 113, pp. 4327-4334 (2009).
• "Structural changes to the calcium silicate hydrate gel phase of hydrated cement with age and on drying and resaturation" (J.J. Thomas, A.J. Allen, H.M. Jennings) Journal of the American Ceramic Society 91, pp. 3362-3369 (2008).
• “Composition and density of nanoscale calcium-silicate-hydrate in cement” (A.J. Allen, J.J. Thomas, H.M. Jennings) Nature Materials 6[4] , pp. 311-316 (2007).
• “A new approach to modeling the nucleation and growth kinetics of tricalcium silicate hydration” (J.J. Thomas) Journal of the American Ceramic Society 90 , pp. 3282-3288 (2007).
• “Analysis of cement paste and C-S-H gel by small-angle neutron scattering” (A.J. Allen, J.J. Thomas) Cement and Concrete Research 37 , pp. 319-324 (2007).
• “A multi-technique investigation of the nanoporosity of cement paste” (H.M. Jennings, J.J. Thomas, J.S. Gevrenov, G. Constantinides, F.-J. Ulm ) Cement and Concrete Research 37 , pp. 329-336 (2007).