Abstract
Tensile strength of concrete is the basic property when estimating the cracking resistance of the structure and when analysing fracture processes in concrete. The most common way of testing tensile strength is the Brazilian method. It has been noticed that the shape and size of specimens influence the tensile splitting strength. The experiments were performed to investigate the impact of cylinder’s length on tensile concrete strength received in the Brazilian method. During the experiment the tensile concrete strength was tested on two different sizes cylindrical specimens: 150 mm × 150 mm and 150 mm × 300 mm. Experiments were performed in two stages, with two types of maximum aggregate size: 16 mm and 22 mm. The software “Statistica” was used to perform the broad scale statistical analysis. When comparing test results for shorter and longer specimens, the increase of tensile splitting strength tested on shorter cylinders was observed (approximately 5%). However, when performing deeper statistical analysis, it has been found that the length effect was not sensitive to the strength of the cement matrix and the type of aggregate but was influenced by the aggregate size. Further experiments are needed in order to perform a multi-parameter statistical analysis of scale effect when testing the splitting tensile strength of concrete.
Highlights
Length Effect at Testing SplittingConcrete is considered as a quasi-brittle material
Higher tensile strength was obtained for concretes with granite aggregate, the lower aggregate strength of gravel mix was measured; it can be concluded that the shape of aggregate grains is of importance, the influence of maximum aggregate size in concretes with gravel aggregate was not clearly observed, the increase of the cement matrix strength caused the increase of the tensile strength
Given that normal strength concrete is a material made up of stiff aggregate particles embedded in a softer hydrated cement matrix, it cannot be used without activating the tensile capacity
Summary
Concrete is considered as a quasi-brittle material. Tensile strength of concrete is much lower than its compressive strength. Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations All these conditions influence concrete quality and necessitate experimental testing of concrete properties and evaluating test results using statistical methods. Some findings reported in the literature suggest that size effect exists when testing other properties of concrete like tensile strength [13,14,15,16] and fracture energy [17,18]. As the Brazilian splitting test is mostly performed on cylindrical specimens, it is important to recognize the effect of the cylinder’s dimensions on tensile strength. In the paper the experimental investigation is presented on how the length of cylindrical specimens influences the tensile splitting strength of concrete
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