Abstract
Main results in the present paper are summarized as follows : 1) The fracture process of cement paste is stabilized as the air content is increased. 2) The larger the size of specimen is, cement paste shows the more stable or ductile fracture process in the small range of the size, but the fracture process transforms from ductile mode as the size of specimen is larger than a specific size. 3) The statistical distribution of strength is closely related to the fracture process and the failure mode. Namely, the mean slope of the distribution curve of strength illustrated in terms of the relation between In (-In (1-P)) and In (F) increases as the fracture process is stabilized. 4) The coefficient of the variation of strength decreases as the fracture process of specimen is stabilized. 5) The mean strength decreases with the increase of air content, and the rate of decrease of compressive strength is more significant than that of flexural strength. 6) The size effect of flexural strength is more significant than that of compressive strength. 7) The statistical phenomena of the strength of cement paste observed by the present experiment can be theoretically explained by Eqs. (8)-(12) with the value of θ related to the defect content in the specimen.
