Experimental and numerical investigation on the dumbbell-shaped specimen of concrete-like materials under tension

Abstract Mortar is an important component of concrete. It is of great significance to obtain its tensile properties accurately. The structure heterogeneity of mortar specimens is high. Specimens are prone to fracture nearby interfaces between specimens and loading plates because of the inhomogenous stress distribution during the testing, which leads that effective tensile data can not be easily obtained. Therefore, through the improvement of specimen’s geometrical structure, the dumbbell specimen is designed for quasi-static direct tensile tests. Compared with the splitting test results, the quasi-static direct tensile testing of dumbbell specimens can be availably conducted to obtain the tensile strength. It also provides an effective approach to obtain the tensile parameters of mortar specimens. Moreover, numerical simulations on dumbbell specimens of mortar with different shapes are also conducted to explore the optimal geometrical structure in dynamic direct tensile tests.