Behaviour of large concrete specimens in uniaxial tension

The behaviour of large size concrete specimens (250 × 250 × 500 mm) in uniaxial tension has been studied. The complete tensile stress–strain response of the concrete was acquired through a limited experimental programme. The experimental programme comprised testing three different mix categories. A relationship between the tensile and nominal compressive strengths of large size concrete specimens was established. Accordingly, the uniaxial tensile strength of the concrete can be predicted by the expression ft′=0·34 fc′ , where f′t and f′c are the tensile and nominal compressive strengths respectively. In comparison with the expressions for small size concrete specimens (150 × 150 × 300 mm), this expression predicts lower tensile strength for large size specimens (250 × 250 × 500 mm). In addition, the axial stress–crack width curves, fracture energy and brittleness of the concretes are also obtained based on the stress–deformation curves. It was found that the fracture energy and brittleness are both depend...