EL ENSAYO DE COMPRESIÓN DIAMETRAL COMO ALTERNATIVA A LA CARACTERIZACIÓN MECÁNICA DE LA CERÁMICA DE CONSTRUCCIÓN

This paper proposes the Brazilian test on cylindrical specimens obtained by pressing on metallic molds as a reliable method to obtain the tensile strength of construction ceramics. It may be regarded by the Industry in this field as a convenient test to get a basic mechanical characterization of the material, as it may give a true material property provided that several ratios between the dimensions of the specimen and of the bearing strips with the characteristic length of the material fall within an appropriate range. We present experimental results obtained from 8 mm-thick cylinders whose diameter was 40 mm in length; the maximum particle size was 100 µm. We also made (1) a complete mechanical characterization of the material which included obtaining fracture properties, and (2) a numerical simulation of the Brazilian test based on the cohesive crack model. Numerical results confirm that the size and boundary conditions chosen for the test are adequate to get the actual tensile strength of construction ceramics.