Determination of fracture toughness parameters of concrete using compact pressure test

Abstract

Fractures start with the formation of cracks and occur as the cracks spread in building materials. This causes significant damage to the buildings. Fracture mechanics is a science that investigates crack behavior, crack analysis and what to do for prevention of cracks. In the present study, concrete fracture toughness parameters were investigated by compact pressure test. In this context, research and a series of experiments were conducted on fractures, types of fractures, fracture mechanics, and compact pressure test. In the present empirical study, 5 unnotched and 15 notched, a total of 20 samples were used. 40 mm notches were created on notched samples. Cube splitting experiments were conducted using 10 mm wide strips on unnotched samples. For Type-I, Type-II and Type-III that were used in the calculation of the fracture toughness parameters of the said samples, fracture loads, tensile values and fractured sample details are presented. Since the concrete is a semi-brittle material, compact pressure samples were analyzed according to the principles of linear elastic fracture mechanics. It was concluded that the standard deviation for the critical fracture parameter (KIc) of the sample, which was naturally more stable than the present study, was smaller and as the structure size increased, the fracture toughness value increased as well.