Fracture and shear properties of concrete construction joints from core samples

This paper describes a testing procedure for concrete joints suitable for cored samples. Compact cylindrical geometries are employed in testing arrangements for notched fracture beams and dnotched shear specimens. Numerical idealisations of the geometries are presented which allow constitutive joint models to be calibrated without the need for a non-linear finite element program. A sequential material parameter identification procedure is presented which uses data measured directly from the tests. Relationships are derived which relate the apparent peak stresses to the elastic limit stresses in both tension and shear, the later being considered to be true material parameters. The procedures are tested for a particular numerical model and are shown to give material parameters that produce numerical results consistent with the tests from which they are derived.