In a pressure-tension test, a cylindrical concrete specimen is inserted into a cylindrical steel jacket, with a rubber ‘‘O’’ ring seal at each end to prevent gas leakage. Gas pressure is then applied to the curved surface of the concrete cylinder, leaving the ends free. As the gas pressure is increased, the specimen eventually fractures across a single plane transverse to the axis of the cylinder. The gas pressure at fracture may then be considered as the tensile strength of the concrete. In this study, the pressure-tension test is used to study fatigue in concrete. A total of 22 standard concrete cylinders (100 mm × 200 mm) were tested. Both dry and wet specimens have been studied. Low-cycle loading, which involves the application of a few load cycles at high stress levels – such as a concrete structure under earthquake load – has been used in this study. It was found that the concrete specimens in a low-cycle loading fail after only a few cycles of loading and interestingly at a stress level lower than the maximum value applied in the cyclic loading. In addition, non-destructive testing (NDT) was performed to determine the progressive damage due to tensile load in concrete cylinders using Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity (UPV). It was found that UPV can be used to evaluate the damage in concrete even after the application of a very low-level of tensile stress – as low as 10% of its tensile strength.
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