Print Email Facebook Twitter Size effect on splitting strength of hardened cement paste: Experimental and numerical study Title Size effect on splitting strength of hardened cement paste: Experimental and numerical study Author Zhang, H. (TU Delft Materials and Environment) Šavija, B. (TU Delft Materials and Environment) Xu, Y. (TU Delft Materials and Environment) Schlangen, E. (TU Delft Materials and Environment) Date 2018 Abstract Cement paste possesses complex microstructural features including defects/pores over a range of length-scales, from nanometres to millimetres in size. As a consequence, it exhibits different behaviour under loading depending on the size. In this work, cubic specimens in a size range of 1: 400 were produced and tested by a one-sided splitting concept using different testing instruments. The smallest specimen with size of 100 μm showed a high nominal splitting strength (18.81 MPa), an order of magnitude higher than the measured strength of 40 mm specimen (1.8 MPa). The test results were used to fit existing analytical size effect models. Although a good fit can be found for the existing size effect models, special attention should be given to the physical meaning behind these empirical parameters. In addition, a multi-scale modelling strategy that considers microstructural features at different length scales was adopted to model the trend of decreasing strength with specimen size observed in experiments. A good agreement between experimental observations and modelling results indicates that the featured material structure dominates the observed size effect on measured strength in the size range considered. Subject Micro-mechanical testingMultiple length scalesSplitting tensile strengthLattice modellingHardened cement paste To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:8eab8f9d-e63b-4956-97cc-7284e9e882f5 DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cemconcomp.2018.09.018 Embargo date 2019-03-25 ISSN 0958-9465 Source Cement and Concrete Composites, 94, 264-276 Bibliographical note Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public. Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights © 2018 H. Zhang, B. Šavija, Y. Xu, E. Schlangen Files PDF 1_s2.0_S0958946518307674_main.pdf 5.03 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:8eab8f9d-e63b-4956-97cc-7284e9e882f5/datastream/OBJ/view