Concrete is the worldwide most utilized construction material because of its very good performance, forming ability, long-term durability, and low costs. Concrete is a brittle material prone to cracking. Extensive cracking may impact durability and performance over time considerably. The addition of a small amount of carbon nanotubes (CNT) increases the concrete’s overall electrical conductivity, enabling internal structure...

The wedge test (sometimes called the Boeing wedge test) is amongst the most readily exploitable techniques for assessment of the rate-dependent fracture energy of adhesive materials when used to bond relatively rigid substrates. With its siblings: the double cantilever beam (DCB), and the tapered double cantilever beam (TDCB), a force is applied, essentially in cleavage, to provoke substrate separation perpendicularly to the bondline...

Wedge tests are usually analysed assuming that the free, unbonded members may be treated as encastré cantilever beams. However, if the adhesive layer is sufficiently flexible (e.g., due to low elastic modulus), then significant strain in the bonded region may occur and lead to modification of the behaviour outside this region. Using in conjunction a sensitive strain gauge method on asymmetric wedge tests and a mathematical analysis...

The wedge test and the related double cantilever beam test are practical methods of assessing structural adhesive fracture energy. In the former, and to a lesser extent the latter, a recognised problem is the difficulty of following the length of the growing crack, required to calculate fracture energy with any accuracy. We present a novel method of measurement of crack length that has the advantages of being accurate and allowing...

The paper describes an experimental and numerical study of size effect on concrete cylindrical specimens in splitting tensile test. Own experimental campaign was performed on specimens with 5 various diameters from D = 74, 105, 150, 192 and 250 mm with hardboard loading strips (distributed load according to standard methods) scaled proportionally to the specimen diameter. The crack opening-control system was applied to obtain the...