• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2001.05a
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• pp.215-220
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• 2001

The objective of this study is to examine the fracture characteristics of concrete at early ages such as critical stress intensity factor, critical crack-tip opening displacement, fracture energy based on the concepts of the effective-elastic crack model and the cohesive crack model. A wedge splitting test for Mode I was performed on cubic wedge specimens with a notch at the edge. By varying strength and age, load-crack mouth opening displacement curves were obtained and the results were analyzed by linear elastic fracture mechanics. The results from the test and analysis showed that critical stress intensity factor and fracture energy increased, and critical crack-tip opening displacement decreased with concrete age from 1 day to 28 days. The obtained fracture parameters at early ages may be used as a fracture criterion and an input data for finite element analysis of concrete at early ages.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2006.04a
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• pp.357-364
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• 2006

The meshfree method is extended by the local partition of unity method to model the cohesive cracks in two dimensional continuum The shape function of a particle whose domain of influence is completely cut by a crack is enriched by the step enrichment function. If the domain of influence contains a crack tip inside, it is enriched by the branch enrichment function without the stress singularity. It is found that this method is more accurate and converges faster than the meshless methods for LEFM cracks based on the visibility concept Several staic and dynamic examples are solved to verify the method.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.319-340
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• 2013

This paper presents a comparative study on the double-K fracture parameters of concrete obtained using four existing analytical methods such as Gauss-Chebyshev integral method, simplified Green's function method, weight function method and simplified equivalent cohesive force method. Two specimen geometries: three point bend test and compact tension specimen for sizes 100-500 mm at initial notch length to depth ratios 0.25 and 0.4 are used for the comparative study. The required input parameters for determining the double-K fracture parameters are derived from the developed fictitious crack model. It is found that the cohesive toughness and initial cracking toughness determined using weight function method and simplified equivalent cohesive force method agree well with those obtained using Gauss-Chebyshev integral method whereas these fracture parameters determined using simplified Green's function method deviates more than by 11% and 20% respectively as compared with those obtained using Gauss-Chebyshev integral method. It is also shown that all the fracture parameters related with double-K model are size dependent.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.26 no.5A
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• pp.861-872
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• 2006

The element free Galerkin method is extended by the local partition of unity method to model the cohesive cracks in two dimensional continuum. The shape function of a particle whose domain of influence is completely cut by a crack is enriched by the step enrichment function. If the domain of influence contains a crack tip inside, it is enriched by a branch enrichment function which does not have the LEFM stress singularity. The discrete equations are obtained directly from the standard Galerkin method since the enrichment is only for the displacement field, which satisfies the local partition of unity. Because only particles whose domains of influence are influenced by a crack are enriched, the system matrix is still sparse so that the increase of the computational cost is minimized. The condition for crack growth in dynamic problems is obtained from the material instability; when the acoustic tensor loses the positive definiteness, a cohesive crack is inserted to the point so as to change the continuum to a discontiuum. The crack speed is naturally obtained from the criterion. It is found that this method is more accurate and converges faster than the classical meshless methods which are based on the visibility concept. In this paper, several well-known static and dynamic problems were solved to verify the method.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.291-295
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• 2017

Tests on the fracture behavior of CFRP-concrete composite bonded interfaces have been extensively carried out. In this study, a progressive damage model is employed to simulate the fracture behaviors. The crack nucleation, propagation and more other details can be captured by these models. The numerical results indicate the fracture patterns seem to depend on the relative magnitudes of the interface cohesive strength and concrete tensile strength. The fracture pattern transits from the predominated adhesive-concrete interface debonding to the dominated concrete cohesive cracking as the interface cohesive strength changes from lower than concrete tensile strength to higher than that. The numerical results have an agreement with the experimental results.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.81-97
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• 2012

This paper presents development of double-K fracture model for the split-tension cube specimen for determining the unstable fracture toughness and initial cracking toughness of concrete. There are some advantages of using of split-tension cube test like compactness and lightness over the existing specimen geometries in practice such as three-point bend test, wedge splitting test and compact tension specimen. The cohesive toughness of the material is determined using weight function having four terms for the split-tension cube specimen. Some empirical relations are also suggested for determining geometrical factors in order to calculate stress intensity factor and crack mouth opening displacement for the same specimen. The results of double-K fracture parameters of split-tension cube specimen are compared with those obtained for compact tension specimen. Finally, the influence of the width of the load-distribution of split-tension cube specimen on the double-K fracture parameters for laboratory size specimens is investigated. The input data required for determining double-K fracture parameters for both the specimen geometries are obtained using well known version of the Fictitious Crack Model.

• Advances in nano research
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.143-168
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• 2015

Initiation of crack and its growth simulation requires accurate model of traction - separation law. Accurate modeling of traction-separation law remains always a great challenge. Atomistic simulations based prediction has great potential in arriving at accurate traction-separation law. The present paper is aimed at establishing a method to address the above problem. A method for traction-separation law prediction via utilizing atomistic simulations data has been proposed. In this direction, firstly, a simpler approach of common neighbor analysis (CNA) for the prediction of crack growth has been proposed and results have been compared with previously used approach of threshold potential energy. Next, a scheme for prediction of crack speed has been demonstrated based on the stable crack growth criteria. Also, an algorithm has been proposed that utilizes a variable relaxation time period for the computation of crack growth, accurate stress behavior, and traction-separation atomistic law. An understanding has been established for the generation of smoother traction-separation law (including the effect of free surface) from a huge amount of raw atomistic data. A new curve fit has also been proposed for predicting traction-separation data generated from the molecular dynamics simulations. The proposed traction-separation law has also been compared with the polynomial and exponential model used earlier for the prediction of traction-separation law for the bulk materials.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.37 no.12
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• pp.1503-1512
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• 2013

In this study, we proposed an indentation evaluation method for fracture toughness using cohesive finite element simulations. First, we examined the effect of material properties (yield strain, Poisson's ratio, and elastic modulus) on crack size during Vickers indentation and then generated a regression formula that explains the relations among fracture toughness, indentation load, and crack size. We also proposed another indentation formula for fracture toughness evaluation using the contact size a and E/H (H: hardness). Finally, we examined the relation between the crack size and the indenter shapes. Based on this, we can generate from the formula obtained using the Vickers indenter a formula for an indenter of different shapes. Using the proposed method, fracture toughness is directly estimated from indentation data.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.18 no.3E
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• pp.191-198
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• 2006

The objective of this study is to examine fracture characteristics of concrete at early ages, i.g. critical stress intensity factor, critical crack-tip opening displacement, fracture energy, and bilinear softening curve based on the concepts of effective-elastic crack model and cohesive crack model. A wedge splitting test for Mode I was performed on cubic wedge specimens with a notch at the edge. By experimenting with various strengths and ages, load-crack mouth opening curves were obtained, and the results were analyzed by linear elastic fracture mechanics and FEM(finite element method). The results from the test and analysis showed that critical stress intensity factor and facture energy increased while critical crack-tip opening displacement decreased with concrete aging from 1 day to 28 days. Four parameters of bilinear softening curve from 1 day to 28 days were obtained from a numerical analysis. The obtained fracture parameters and bilinear softening curves at early ages from this study are to be used as a fracture criterion and an input data for the finite element analysis of concrete at early ages.

• Coupled systems mechanics
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.125-145
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• 2020

In this paper, we present a 3D thermo-hydro-mechanical coupled discrete beam lattice model of structure built of the nonisothermal saturated poro-plastic medium subjected to mechanical loads and nonstationary heat transfer conditions. The proposed model is based on Voronoi cell representation of the domain with cohesive links represented as inelastic Timoshenko beam finite elements enhanced with additional kinematics in terms of embedded strong discontinuities in axial and both transverse directions. The enhanced Timoshenko beam finite element is capable of modeling crack formation in mode I, mode II and mode III. Mode I relates to crack opening, mode II relates to in-plane crack sliding, and mode III relates to the out-of-plane shear sliding. The pore fluid flow and heat flow in the proposed model are governed by Darcy's law and Fourier's law for heat conduction, respectively. The pore pressure field and temperature field are approximated with linear tetrahedral finite elements. By exploiting nodal point quadrature rule for numerical integration on tetrahedral finite elements and duality property between Voronoi diagram and Delaunay tetrahedralization, the numerical implementation of the coupling results with additional pore pressure and temperature degrees of freedom placed at each node of a Timoshenko beam finite element. The results of several numerical simulations are presented and discussed.