Sunteți pe pagina 1din 2

Testing concrete compressive strength

Failure Modes in Concrete

With a material such as concrete, which contains void spaces of various size and shape in the matrix and microcracks at the interfacial transition zone, the fail-ure modes under stress are very complex and vary with the type of stress. A brief review of the failure modes, however, will be useful in understanding and con-trol of the factors that influence concrete strength. Under uniaxial tension, relatively less energy is needed for the initiation and growth of cracks in the matrix. Rapid propagation and interlinkage of the crack system, consisting of preexisting cracks at the interfacial transition zone and newly formed cracks in the matrix, account for the brittle failure. In compres-sion, the failure mode is less brittle because considerably more energy is needed to form and to extend cracks in the matrix. It is generally agreed that, in a uni-axial compression test on medium- or low-strength concrete, no cracks are ini-tiated in the matrix up to about 50 percent of the failure stress; at this stage a stable system of cracks, called shear-bond cracks, already exists in the vicinity of coarse aggregate. At higher stress levels, cracks are initiated within the matrix; their number and size increases progressively with increasing stress levels. The cracks in the matrix and the interfacial transition zone (shear-bond cracks) eventually join up, and generally a failure surface develops at about 20 to 30from the direction of the load,

Compressive Strength and Factors Affecting It

The response of concrete to applied stress depends not only on the stress type but also on how a combination of various factors affects porosity of the differ-ent structural components of concrete. The factors include properties and pro-portions of materials that make up the concrete mixture, degree of compaction, and conditions of curing. From the standpoint of strength, the relationship between water-cement ratio and porosity is undoubtedly the most important factor because, independent of other factors, it affects the porosity of both the cement mortar matrix and the interfacial transition zone between the matrix and the coarse aggregate. Direct determination of porosity of the individual structural components of concretethe matrix and the interfacial transition zoneis impractical, and therefore precise models of predicting concrete strength cannot be developed. However, over a period of time many useful empirical relations have been found, which, for practical use, provide enough indirect information about the influ-ence of numerous factors on compressive strength (compressive strength being widely used as an index of all other types of strength). Although the actual response of concrete to applied stress is a result of complex interactions between various factors, to facilitate a clear understanding of these factors they can be separately discussed under three categories: (1) characteristics and proportions of materials, (2) curing conditions, and (3) testing parameters

S-ar putea să vă placă și