Tensile behavior of early age concrete measured by uniaxial tension test

Controlling the cracking in early age concrete in order to enhance the durability of concrete structures requires the proper knowledge of tensile behavior of concrete is helpful to fulfill crack control. A recently developed uniaxial tension test procedure has a potential to overcome experimental difficulties of the uniaxial tension test. It is found in this study that the proposed test procedure monitored successfully tension-softening curves as well as tensile strengths of normal-strength concrete in early ages. The observation that the tension-softening behavior is indistinguishable with respect to various ages of concrete specimens implies that strength gaining or crack propagation mechanism is very similar within these periods. It seems that concrete age within the employed time scale influences little on fracture energy. The tensile strengths obtained by conventional and new tension tests an obscure increase with respect to ages unlike compressive strength.