PREDICTION OF CONCRETE TENSILE STRENGTH FROM COMPRESSIVE STRENGTH: EVALUATION OF EXISTING RELATIONS FOR NORMAL WEIGHT CONCRETE

The 0.5 power relation adopted by ACI Committee 318 predicting the splitting tensile strength of concrete from its compressive strength has been investigated. Research has consistently indicated that the relation in the Building Code Requirement does not agree particularly well with test results. Consequently, researchers have proposed alternative relations. The research for this paper investigated the validity and accuracy of these alternate relations. Tensile strength preditions from these relations were compared with test results assembled from various sources. It was found that the splitting tensile strength is not proportional to the 0.5 power of compressive strength. Although most of the alternate relations appear to be good, the assembled test data revealed that 0.69 is the most accurate power relation. Thus 0.69 power relation is proposed as an alternative to the ACI 318 relation.