Fracture measurements on cement paste

This paper describes an investigation into the fracture behaviour of hardened cement paste. Notched specimens of the material were tested to failure in flexure and tension. In the initial flexural tests on beams of fixed overall depth, the stress intensity factor at failure as calculated from linear-elastic fracture mechanics appeared to be a material constant. However, further investigation showed that this factor varied with specimen size, and suggested that linear-elastic fracture mechanics and the concept of fracture toughness are not readily applicable to hardened cement paste, which would appear to be a relatively notch insensitive material whose strength is not greatly reduced by the presence of flaws. A “tied crack” model explains semi-quantiatively the observed behaviour.