Concept and Realisation of Direct Tensile Tests on Steel Fibre Reinforced Concrete (SFRC) with main Focus on Ease of Execution

When steel fibres are added to concrete, this essentially improves the post-cracking tensile strength, which is usually quantified utilising indirect methods such as flexural tensile tests. These tests have the disadvantage that further assumptions and calculations, such as inverse analyses, are necessary to determine the actual tensile material properties. Direct (centric) tensile tests are an alternative; however, the technical implementation of those tests generally is very demanding and requires special equipment. The paper at hand presents a concept for carrying out direct tensile tests, which can be performed with minor additional effort compared to flexural tensile tests. Both the test specimens and load transmission devices can be manufactured using standard tools. As an example of application, three series of direct tensile tests with varying steel fibre content (80, 40 and 20 kg/m³, respectively) are carried out, evaluated and consequently discussed. The test set-up proves to be efficient regarding the testing procedure as well as in terms of the quality of the results obtained.