Critical crack tip opening displacement of different strength concrete

Critical crack tip opening displacement (CTODc) of concrete using experimental and analytical evaluation with seven different compressive strengths ranging from 30 up to 150 MPa was studied based on two types of fracture tests: three-point bending (TPB) and wedge splitting (WS). In the tests, the values of CTODc were experimentally recorded using a novel technique, in which fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors were used, and two traditional techniques, in which strain gauges and clip gauges were deployed. The values of CTODc of tested concrete were also predicted using two existing analytical formulae proposed by JENQ & SHAH and XU, respectively. It is found that the values of CTODc obtained by both experimental measurements and analytical formulae exhibit a negligible variation as the compressive strength of concrete increases, and the test geometry adopted has little impact on the value of CTODc. Regarding the experimental measurement of CTODc, the clip gauge method generally leads to a larger value of CTODc and shows a more significant scatter as compared with the other two methods, while the strain gauge method leads to a slightly lower CTODc as compared with the FBG sensor method. The analytical formula proposed by JENQ and SHAH is found to generally lead to an overestimation, while the analytical formula proposed by XU shows a good accuracy.