Issue 30

G. Ferro et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 30 (2014) 75-83; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.30.11 79 selected for all the specimens and displacement rate was fixed at 0.003 mm/min. The portions of broken prisms were tested in compression according to ASTM C349 [24]. For compression, the displacement rate was kept at 0.50 mm/min and 0.80 mm/min for loading and unloading the specimens. Typical test setup for flexural and compression test is shown in Fig. 5(a) and 5(b). Figure 5 : Test setup for: (a) Flexural strength test & (b) Compressive strength test Small broken pieces of specimens from compression tests were analyzed by FESEM for their microstructure. FESEM images are shown in Fig. 6. Figure 6 : FESEM images of cement composite containing inert carbonized particles R ESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS he notched specimen were tested in three point bending. Minimum three specimens were tested for each composition and their average modulus of rupture (MOR) was evaluated according Eq. (1): 2 2 3  2 max max F l wh   (3) where F is the maximum force in the load deflection curve, l is the span length, w is the specimen width, h is the specimen height. T