Fracture properties of lightweight concrete

This study presents the experimental results of fracture properties of concrete incorporating two kinds of domestic lightweight aggregate (LWA) manufactured through either a cold-bonding or a sintering process. The cold-bonded aggregates were mainly made of pulverized fly-ash through a cold-pelletization process at ambient temperature, while the sintered aggregates were made of clay and shale expanded by heat at a temperature near 1200 °C. Experimental results show that the 28-day compressive strengths of φ100 × 200 mm cylindrical concrete specimen made of those LWAs range from 30.1 (sintered) to 33.9 MPa (cold-bonded). By means of size effect law, it is found that the fracture energies, Gf, were 34.42 N/m (sintered) and 37.2 N/m (cold-bonded), respectively.