Establishing an empirical relation between the compressive, tensile, and flexural strengths of polymer concrete

The reciprocal relationships between the mechanical properties of polymer concrete are imperative in designing and analyzing structures when using these materials. Determination of the quantitative values of concrete mechanical strength requires specimen fabrication, curing, and conduction of accurate and sometimes time-consuming experiments which is subject to various challenges due to the necessity to utilize advanced laboratory equipment and financial issues. Moreover, polymer concrete had far greater specifications compared to conventional concrete, and the relations available for conventional concrete cannot be employed for polymer concrete. Therefore, the present study aims to collect, analyze, and perform statistical analysis on the mechanical properties of epoxy and polyester polymer concrete indicated in previous research and propose relations to predict the tensile and flexural strengths of polymer concrete based on its compressive strength. The obtained results indicated that the models proposed in the study had an appropriate accuracy in estimation of mechanical properties of polymeric concrete, in addition to high comprehensiveness concerning the data available in articles. In the modeling carried out, accuracy of the developed equations for estimation of mechanical properties of polyester polymer concrete is higher than the one for epoxy polymer concrete and the maximum difference between the mechanical strength of polymer concrete and the values resulted from estimating equations was 15.7%.