The LVDT s are attached to these buttons. The standard specimen has a diameter of 150 mm and a thickness of 50 mm. Indirect tensile strengths at temperatures in the range of -10 to 30 o C are used for fatigue cracking analyses. The testing sequence for the creep compliance test consists of cooling the specimen to the desired temperature, applying a compressive creep load for 100 s, and measuring the time dependent deformation using the LVDT s. Knowing the load and deformation as a function of time, the creep compliance of the material can be calculated.
Creep compliance is the time dependent strain divided by the applied stress.
The indirect tensile strength of the specimen for thermal cracking analyses is determined by applying a load at a rate of 12.5 mm per minute of crosshead movement until the load starts to decrease because of specimen failure. For fatigue cracking analyses, a faster rate of 50.0 mm per minute of crosshead movement is used.