Abstract
Testing equipment, made up of three orthogonally arranged jacks, which is able to apply a purely tensile load to a concrete specimen is proposed. The secondary flexural stresses are kept under control and constitute a degree of error comparable to the values allowed for normal testing apparatus. When the crack formation tends to produce asymmetry in the system, the counter-reaction intervenes, annulling the load eccentricity. In this way the true tensile properties (strength and fracture energy) of the material may be measured.
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Carpinteri, A., Maradei, F. Three-jack solution to obtain a truly stable and symmetric tensile concrete test. Experimental Mechanics 35, 19–23 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02325829
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02325829