Title:
Why is the Splitting Tensile Strength Test Known as the “Brazilian Test”?
Author(s):
Tanesi
Publication:
Web Session
Volume:
Issue:
Appears on pages(s):
Keywords:
DOI:
Date:
10/17/2021
Abstract:
Historically, the splitting tensile strength test (ASTM C496/C496M) has been called the Brazilian test. In 1943, Rio de Janeiro, was a fast-growing city in Brazil. However, an old church, built in 1732, was hindering the expansion of one of its avenues and, in order to avoid its demolition, the city decided to move the church from one side of the avenue to the other. At that time, Europe employed steel rollers to move structures, but Brazilian engineers decided to innovate by using concrete rollers instead. When one of the engineers, Lobo Carneiro, started testing the rollers, he noticed that the cracking pattern was very different than that observed with the steel rollers, i.e., the concrete rollers were breaking in tension. He studied the stress distribution and proposed the equation that we still use to determine the splitting tensile strength. This test was first standardized by ASTM in 1962.