idwilliams

My favorite quote regarding Engineering is: "Engineering is the art of modeling materials we do not wholly understand, into shapes we cannot precisely analyze so as to withstand forces we cannot p...

Today I fabricated the bearing plates for the tension cycles. The design is simple, but the process was time consuming. Each plate is a piece of 4" x 1/2" x 15" A36 steel with two, 1-1/4" holes d...

After a week of wet curing, we're ready to remove the formwork. Cylinder tests are showing a strength of 3.1 ksi, which puts us on track to reach our goal of 5 ksi on test day. No major defects a...

In a very hectic span of about 6 hours we were able to cast the control specimen using a highly flowable, plain concrete mix. The mix used in this specimen has all the same proportions as the HyFR...

This type of specimen is typically referred to as a "dogbone" as the enlarged ends and reduced middle section resemble a, well, dogbone. Direct tension tests are rarely performed on concrete due to...