Establishment of uniaxial tensile test procedure for high strength concrete

It is reported that the tension softening behavior of normal strength concrete was monitored reliably by a uniaxial tension test developed by the authors. The major criteria for the test procedure are maintenance of stable fracture, avoidance of secondary flexure and prevention of multiple cracks. The main purpose of this study is to examine the practicability of the uniaxial tension test on investigating tensile properties of high strength concretes. It was found that the present test procedure has an ability to investigate tension softening behavior of high strength concretes as well as normal strength concretes. As the level of concrete strengths increases, the fracture energy also increases for the present concrete. The application of guide notches is beneficial to make tension softening behavior more reliable while it may not influence tensile strength and fracture energy. The overlapping cracks frequently generated for normal concrete was not observed for high strength concretes.