Experiments were conducted to investigate the suitability of a cube splitting test for determining the indirect tensile strength of concrete, and to examine the relations between this tensile strength and the usual flexural and compressive strength values for a wide range of concretes. The cube splitting test involved loading a cube specimen on its side between two centrally placed bearing strips so that tensile failure occurred in a vertical plane between the places where the loads were applied, similar to the splitting test on cylinders. The main conclusions were: i) The cube splitting test was found to give consistent results over a wide range of concretes and to be a convenient method of assessing a tensile property of concrete. ii) The relation between tensile splitting strength of concretes was more uniform than the similar relation for flexural strength. A fairly uniform relation was also found between the tensile splitting strength and flexural strength, for concrete made with similar aggregate, although this ratio was found to vary with different aggregates and with increasing flexural strength. iii) The strength relations obtained with mortars and with a lightweight aggregate concrete differed from those of the dense aggregate concretes.
Abstract