{
  "abstract": "Macroscopic fracture testing of nano-modified cement paste requires the labor-intensive fabrication of notched beams. This study establishes a micro-to-macro surrogate modeling framework mapping localized nanomechanical scratch signatures to macroscopic fracture resistance. A database was compiled for pure Portland cement paste (w/c = 0.30, 28-day curing) across seven nano-silica (NS) dosages (0.0–3.0%). Across 21 independent physical beam specimens (Nmacro = 21) and 470 validated phase-segmented nanoscratch observations (Nmicro = 470), localized descriptors were acquired across unhydrated clinker, hydration products, and the clinker–hydrate interfacial transition zone (micro-ITZ). Within a leak-free pipeline, an XGBoost surrogate model was trained using specimen-grouped nested cross-validation (Nested GroupKFold), achieving cross-validated R2 values of 0.878 ± 0.024 (95% CI [0.834, 0.919]) for macro-fracture toughness (KICmacro) and 0.865 ± 0.028 (95% CI [0.815, 0.912]) for fracture energy (Gf). Leave-one-dosage-out validation demonstrated that when provided with the target mix’s in situ nanoscratch fingerprint, the model successfully tracked the non-monotonic fracture evolution, including the peak at 2.0% NS and the agglomeration degradation at 3.0% NS. Bootstrap Tree-SHAP attribution identified interfacial micro-toughness (KIC,ITZmicro) as the primary predictive contributor (42.5% [95% CI: 37.8%, 47.1%]), revealing a model-suggested transition region around 0.80 MPa ⋅ m1/2 above which interfacial crack resistance associates with substantial macroscopic toughening. This framework provides an efficient surrogate approach for evaluating macro-fracture properties from micromechanical indicators.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "School of Urban Construction, Hangzhou Polytechnic, Hangzhou 311402, China",
    "Zhejiang Scientific Research Institute of Transport, Hangzhou 311402, China",
    "College of Architectural Engineering, Shanxi Vocational University of Engineering Science and Technology, Jinzhong 030619, China",
    "Intelligent Transportation System Research Center, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China"
  ],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 4,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Xiangong Zhou"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1
      ],
      "name": "Manhui Liu"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2
      ],
      "name": "Xiancheng Zhou"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "Weikang Kong"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/278b0vkztgmje.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.3390/nano16211440",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "278b0vkztgmje",
  "issns": [
    "2079-4991"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://www.mdpi.com/2079-4991/16/21/1440",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [],
  "openalex": null,
  "pdf_url": null,
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-11-06",
  "publisher": "MDPI AG",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/278b0vkztgmje.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-10T00:21:23Z",
      "native_id": "10.3390/nano16211440",
      "source": "crossref",
      "url": "https://www.mdpi.com/2079-4991/16/21/1440"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "chemistry",
      "origin": "issn:2079-4991",
      "subfield": "materials-polymers"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Nanoscratch-Informed Micro-to-Macro Surrogate Modeling of Fracture Properties in Nano-Silica Modified Portland Cement Paste",
  "title_text": "Nanoscratch-Informed Micro-to-Macro Surrogate Modeling of Fracture Properties in Nano-Silica Modified Portland Cement Paste",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-10T00:21:23Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/278b0vkztgmje",
  "venue": "Nanomaterials",
  "versions": []
}