Review of strain rate effects for concrete in tension

A literature review was conducted to determine the extant data characterizing the effects of strain rate on the tensile strength of concrete. In particular, additional new data by Ross er al. were considered. This data supports the dynamic increase factor (DIF) being a bilinear function of the strain rate in a log-log plot,,vith no increases for strain rates below 10(-6) with a slope change at a strain rate of 1 s(-1). A DIF of about 7 was obtained at the highest reported experimental strain rate of 157 s(-1) The DIF formulation recommended by the European CEB was described, together with its origins. It was found that the data differed somewhat from the CEB recommendations, mostly for strain rates beyond 1 s(-1). Therefore, an alternate formulation was proposed bused on the experimental darn.