Experimental, Franc2d, and DDM simulation to determine the anisotropic tensile strength of brittle material

In this paper, a compression-to-tensile load converter device is developed to determine the anisotropic tensile strength of brittle material. A cubic sample with an internal pore was used as the test specimen, and a series of finite element analysis and DDM simulations were performed thereafter to analyse the effect of pore dimensions on the stress concentration, as well as to render a suitable criterion for determining the anisotropic tensile strength of concrete. The results obtained by this device show that the tensile strength of concrete is similar in different directions because of the homogeneity of bonding between the materials.