DLyons Jun 9, 2011:

Bonding Sounds good to me.

Neil Ashby Jun 9, 2011:

Maybe "bonding" would work better? .

DLyons Jun 9, 2011:

Bond? In the area of reinforced cement, I think it refers to a macroscopic adhesive bond which ruptures under a shear force of the order of 10MPa. Removing the word "bond" in UTS works fine, but is a bit more problematic for TBS as that's "Average tensile bond strength".

Neil Ashby Jun 9, 2011:

Maybe DLyons original answers are correct but simply without the "bond" and the same units/names of measurements can be applied on a microscopic level (in chemistry i.e. with the word "bond") or on a macroscopic level as in cement production / testing. A Pascal or MegaPascal it's the same thing just one is 1 million times bigger e.g. £1 or £1million they are both amounts of pounds....MPa are used to measure something which is big, and strong whereas Pa are more fitting for micro-systems....

DLyons Jun 8, 2011:

Pascal etc 1 Pascal = 1 N/m2 = 1 kg/(m.s2).
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal_(unidad)

Yes, Ultimate Tensile Strength = UTS is what I found.

Marie-Helene Dubois (asker) Jun 8, 2011:

OK I think I'm close After doing some detective work, I've found out that there is such a thing as UTS (Ultimate Tensile Strength) which is used for testing steel and I was wondering if anyone else concurrs on that being the explanation. I don't think it has to do with bond.
However, I am still bemused as to the Tbm explanation. It should go hand in hand as both Spanish acronyms do...
Can anyone shed light?

Marie-Helene Dubois (asker) Jun 8, 2011:

I've seen it on quite some Spanish texts especially with references to civil engineering works which is the subject of my text. I've seen it mentioned in the boe but not on any English language sites.
I don't know if this helps anyone at all but I have found out that these are sometimes expressed as N/mm2 or kp/cm2.
It could very well be some kind of equivalent of MPa...
I just still don't know exactly how these two would be expressed in English (if at all).

DLyons Jun 8, 2011:

Units In steel reinforcing the units would be Mega Pascals MPa. http://www.mc2-ice.com/support/estref/popular_conversion_fil...

I found a ref with T_sub{bm} and T_sub{bu} quoted in MPa. I'll look for it later on.

Neil Ashby Jun 8, 2011:

I agree T sub bm.... Ref. 1 see section 31.2, use in cement manufacture (note "t subscript bm" and "t subscript bu" http://webs.demasiado.com/forjados/normativa/EHE/Capitulo6/A...

DLyons Jun 8, 2011:

Acronyms I came across T_sub{bm} and T_sub{bu} in a Spanish text. Of course they could just have taken them from a non-Spanish source..

Neil Ashby Jun 8, 2011:

It appears that the accronyms are already in English (or a language other than Spanish) as the initials do not really fit in with the Spanish description.