README file Dataset Title: Micro-CT Image Dataset of Cement–EPS Composites Collected in the CEPSCAN Project Dataset Authors: Nicolò Lo Presti (Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering (DICAM), University of Bologna, Viale del Risorgimento 2, 40136 Bologna, Italy), ORCID 0000-0002-3985-7939; Giovanni Castellazzi (Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering (DICAM), University of Bologna, Viale del Risorgimento 2, 40136 Bologna, Italy), ORCID 0000-0001-5870-5474; Pascale Sénéchal (Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour, E2S UPPA, CNRS, LFCR, Pau, France), ORCID 0000-0002-4398-1254; Hannelore Derluyn (Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour, E2S UPPA, CNRS, LFCR, Pau, France), ORCID 0000-0002-1574-1456; Elisa Stabellini (EDILTECO spa, Via dell'Industria 710, San Felice sul Panaro 41038, Italy); Paolo Stabellini (EDILTECO spa, Via dell'Industria 710, San Felice sul Panaro 41038, Italy) Dataset Contact Person: Nicolò Lo Presti (University of Bologna), ORCID 0000-0002-3985-7939, e-mail nicolo.lopresti2@unibo.it Dataset License: this dataset is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Year of creation: 2023 Year of publication: 2025 Project Info: CEPSCAN (CT Scanning for Optimizing Cement–EPS Insulation Material Performances). This project was supported by the EXCITE Network as Transnational Access (TNA, https://excite-network.eu/access/tna-portal/) to the DMEX laboratory of the Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour (UPPA, France). The EXCITE Network is funded from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101005611 (https://doi.org/10.3030/101005611). Dataset Contents The dataset consists of: _12 compressed zip folders with tomographic images in .tif format: (01) CEPSCAN_Compression_C2A125-C6C275.zip (02) CEPSCAN_Compression_C2A275.zip (03) CEPSCAN_Compression_C2C125.zip (04) CEPSCAN_Compression_C2C275.zip (05) CEPSCAN_Compression_C6A275.zip (06) CEPSCAN_Compression_CEV3.zip (07) CEPSCAN_Mixing_influence_10mu.zip (08) CEPSCAN_Mixing_influence_70mu.zip (09) CEPSCAN_Others_subsetA_10mu.zip (10) CEPSCAN_Others_subsetA_70mu.zip (11) CEPSCAN_Others_subsetB_10mu.zip (12) CEPSCAN_Others_subsetB_70mu.zip _1 README file in .txt format CEPSCAN_README.txt Dataset Documentation Abstract This repository contains the dataset produced within the project “CT Scanning for Optimizing Cement–EPS Insulation Material Performances” (CEPSCAN), conducted at the DMEX laboratory of the Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour (UPPA). The research aimed to enhance the performance of an insulation material commonly used in the construction sector, composed of a cementitious matrix and expanded polystyrene (EPS) beads of a few millimeters in diameter, by analyzing CT scans of multiple test specimens. The dataset includes both high- and low-resolution tomographic images acquired in static conditions to investigate different features of the samples, as well as scans performed under external mechanical loading. Content of the files (01) Folder CEPSCAN_Compression_C2A125-C6C275.zip contains two subfolders, namely C2A125 and C6C275. Each of them contains further subfolders, named as the parent folder followed by the magnitude of the vertical compressive load at which the scanning of the sample was performed, e.g. C2A125_25kg. Folders such as C2A125_end refer to the collapsed state of samples at the end of the loading procedure for which a load magnitude was not determined. Each of these folders contains the representation of a 4cm cubic sample by means of grayscale images of vertical slices of it. (02) Folder CEPSCAN_Compression_C2A275.zip contains a set of subfolders, named as the parent folder followed by the magnitude of the vertical compressive load at which the scanning of the sample was performed, e.g. C2A275_25kg. Folders such as C2A275_end2 refer to the collapsed state of samples at the end of the loading procedure for which a load magnitude was not determined. Each of these folders contains the representation of a 4cm cubic sample by means of grayscale images of vertical slices of it. (03) Folder CEPSCAN_Compression_C2C125.zip contains a subfolder named C_2C_125_IR_30mu regarding a test acquisition at an intermediate resolution of 30 micrometer voxel size, as well as folder Compression_C2C125. This second folder contains a set of subfolders, named as the parent folder followed by the magnitude of the vertical compressive load at which the scanning of the sample was performed, e.g. C2C125_25kg. Each of these folders contains the representation of a 4cm cubic sample by means of grayscale images of vertical slices of it. (04) Folder CEPSCAN_Compression_C2C275.zip contains a set of subfolders, named as the parent folder followed by the magnitude of the vertical compressive load at which the scanning of the sample was performed, e.g. C2C275_25kg. Folders such as C2C275_end1 refer to the collapsed state of samples at the end of the loading procedure for which a load magnitude was not determined. Each of these folders contains the representation of a 4cm cubic sample by means of grayscale images of vertical slices of it. (05) Folder CEPSCAN_Compression_C6A275.zip contains a set of subfolders, named as the parent folder followed by the magnitude of the vertical compressive load at which the scanning of the sample was performed, e.g. C6A275_25kg. Folders such as C6A275_end refer to the collapsed state of samples at the end of the loading procedure for which a load magnitude was not determined. Each of these folders contains the representation of a 4cm cubic sample by means of grayscale images of vertical slices of it. (06) Folder CEPSCAN_Compression_CEV3.zip contains a set of subfolders, named as the parent folder followed by the magnitude of the vertical compressive load at which the scanning of the sample was performed, e.g. CEV3_25kg. Folder such as CEV3_end refers to the collapsed state of the sample at the end of the loading procedure for which a load magnitude was not determined. Each of these folders contains the representation of a 4cm cubic sample by means of grayscale images of vertical slices of it. (07) Folder CEPSCAN_Mixing_influence_10mu.zip contains 9 tomographic datasets that highlight the influence of the mixing protocol on the development of the porous microstructure in cement-EPS insulating materials, acquired with a voxel size of 10 micrometers. (08) Folder CEPSCAN_Mixing_influence_70mu.zip contains 9 tomographic datasets that highlight the influence of the mixing protocol on the development of the porous microstructure in cement-EPS insulating materials, acquired with a voxel size of 70 micrometers. (09) Folder CEPSCAN_Others_subsetA_10mu.zip contains 5 tomographic datasets acquired with a voxel size of 10 micrometers that highlight the microstructure of samples produced with recycled EPS. (10) Folder CEPSCAN_Others_subsetA_70mu.zip contains 5 tomographic datasets acquired with a voxel size of 70 micrometers that highlight the microstructure of samples produced with recycled EPS. (11) Folder CEPSCAN_Others_subsetB_10mu.zip contains 5 tomographic datasets acquired with a voxel size of 10 micrometers that highlight the microstructure of samples produced with recycled EPS or by employing alternative mixing tools. (12) Folder CEPSCAN_Others_subsetB_70mu.zip contains 5 tomographic datasets acquired with a voxel size of 70 micrometers that highlight the microstructure of samples produced with recycled EPS or by employing alternative mixing tools. File naming rules The convention generally employed in this dataset for folders' names is as follows: __ For instance, folder 2A_125_10mu contains tomographic images of a sample produced with EPS beads of 2mm, mixing protocol A, 125kg of binder, acquired with a voxel size of 10 micrometers. Then, each folder contains two .xml files, a .pexport, a.jpg image and several grayscale images in .tif format representing vertical slices of the scanned samples. The .tif images possess the same name of the parent folder, followed by sequential numbers corresponding to their position in space in the tomographic reconstruction. The other four files contained in the folder, named e.g. "c0b386b6-9543-40cf-8bf6-43920d9fcccd.rec.1.xml", are generated during the reconstruction of the dataset and contain the parameters adopted for this task. Methodologies Tomographic acquisitions were carried out on 4cm cubic samples of hardened mortars by means of the Tescan UniTOM XL, wich features a 300W X-ray source with a tunable energy level between 30kVp and 180kVp. File specifics Each tomographic acquisition can be visualized in 3D by means of a software for visualization and manipulation of this kind of datasets. For instance, the Dragonfly software (https://dragonfly.comet.tech/), freely available for academic use, can be employed for this purpose. .xml and .pexport files can be opened with a text reader such as Notepad++ (https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/). To cite this dataset: Nicolò Lo Presti et al. (2025) Micro-CT Image Dataset of Cement–EPS Composites Collected in the CEPSCAN Project. DOI https://doi.org/10.6092/unibo/amsacta/8485