• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.149-154
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• 2002

An analytical fracture mechanics approach was used to investigate the fracture behavior of reinforced concrete beams. By use of this approach based on fracture mechanics concepts, the crack width and length as well as the strength and cracking stability of reinforced concrete beams were investigated. The results obtained from the analytical studies were also discussed in terms of the minimum reinforcement ratio and crack width specified in design code provisions. The analytical approach based on fracture mechanics concepts are very useful to predict the fracture behavior of reinforced concrete beams.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.91-112
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• 2004

Concrete is a composite material and at meso-level, may be assumed to be composed of three phases: aggregate, mortar-matrix and aggregate-matrix interface. It is postulated herein that although non-linear material parameters are generally used to model this composite structure by finite element method, linear elastic fracture mechanics principles can be used for modelling at the meso level, if the properties of all three phases are known. For this reason, a novel meso-mechanical approach for concrete fracture which uses the composite material model with distributed-phase for elastic properties of phases and considers the size effect according to linear elastic fracture mechanics for strength properties of phases is presented in this paper. Consequently, the developed model needs two parameters such as compressive strength and maximum grain size of concrete. The model is applied to three most popular fracture mechanics approaches for concrete namely the two-parameter model, the effective crack model and the size effect model. It is concluded that the developed model well agrees with considered approaches.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.18 no.3E
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• pp.145-150
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• 2006

An experiment with the objective of providing guidelines for joint depth determination and timing of contraction joint sawcutting to avert uncontrolled cement concrete pavement cracking has been conducted. Theoretical analysis and laboratory tests were performed to help in understanding and analyzing the field observation. Using two-dimensional elastic fracture mechanics, the influence of several parameters on crack propagation was delineated by a parametric study, involving initial notch ratio, joint spacing, Young's modulus and thermal expansion coefficient of concrete, temperature gradient, and modulus of subgrade reaction. Bimaterials made of rock plus cement mortar and rock plus polymer mortar were applied to the concrete in a field test section, and they were subjected to fracture tests. These tests have shown that fracture mechanics is a powerful tool not only in judging the quality of the jointed cement concrete pavement but also in providing a criterion for crack propagation and delamination. Based on fracture mechanics, a method is proposed to determine the joint depth, sawcut timing, and spacing of the jointed cement concrete pavement. This method has successfully been applied to a test section in Seohaean expressway. This study also summarizes the research results obtained from a field test for jointed plain concrete pavement, which was also carried out on the Seohaean expressway.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1995.10a
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• pp.171-177
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• 1995

Fracture mechanics does work for concrete, provided that one uses a proper, nonlinear form of fracture mechanics in which a finite nonlinear zone at fracture front is being considered. The fracture process zone is a region ahead of a traction-free crack, and the development of model of fracture process zone is most important to describe fracture phenomena in concrete. This paper is about fracture behavior of concrete cylinder under lateral pressure. Concrete cylinders were made of high strength normal connote, steel fiber reinforced concrete and steel fiber reinforced polymer-impregnated concrete and concrete and the fracture behavior such as cracking propagation and ultimate load are observed. The fracture process zone is modelled by a Dugdale-Barenblatt type model with linear tension-softening curve and are implemented to the boundary element technique for the fracture analyses of the cylinders. The experimental results are compared with analysis results and tension-softening curves for the steel fiber reinforced concrete and steel fiber reinforced polymer-impregnated concrete are obtained by back analyses.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.55-62
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• 2021

The concrete fatigue analysis can be performed with the use of fracture mechanics. The fracture mechanics defines the fatigue crack propagation as the relationship of crack growth rate and stress intensity factor. In contrast to metal, the application of fracture mechanics to concrete is more complicated and therefore many authors have introduced empirical expressions using Paris law. The topic of this paper is development of a new prediction of fatigue crack propagation for concrete using rheological-dynamical analogy (RDA) and finite element method (FEM) in the frame of linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM). The static and cyclic fatigue three-point bending tests on notched beams are considered. Verification of the proposed approach was performed on the test results taken from the literature. The comparison between the theoretical model and experimental results indicates that the model proposed in this paper is valid to predict the crack propagation in flexural fatigue of concrete.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.64 no.1
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• pp.59-69
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• 2017

The field of fracture mechanics has gained significance because of its ability to address the behaviour of cracks. Predicting the fracture properties of concrete based on experimental investigations is a challenge considering the quasi-brittle nature of concrete. So, there is a need for developing a standard numerical tool which predicts the fracture energy of concrete which is at par with experimental results. The present study is an attempt to evaluate the fracture energy and characteristic length for different grades of concrete using Concrete Damage Plasticity (CDP) model. Indian Standard and EUROCODE are used for the basic input parameters of concrete. Numerical evaluation is done using Finite Element Analysis Software ABAQUS/CAE. Hsu & Hsu and Saenz stress-strain models are adopted for the current study. Mesh sensitivity analysis is also carried to study the influence of type and size of elements on the overall accuracy of the solution. Different input parameters like dilatation angle, eccentricity are varied and their effect on fracture properties is addressed. The results indicated that the fracture properties of concrete for various grades can be accurately predicted without laboratory tests using CDP model.

• Magazine of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.81-92
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• 1990

Concrete, a mixed material, has heterogeniety, anisotrophy and nonlinearity. Therefore, in its 'racture analysis, it is more reasonable to evaluate its fracture toughness by applying the concept of 'racture mechanics rather than the strength concept. Up to the present the concepts of fracture mechanics which were applied to concrete have been divided into two main classes. The one is the concept of linear elastic fracture mechanics and the other is the concept of elastic-plastic fracture mechanics. But it has been pointed out that there are many problems and irrationalities in applying the concept of linear elastic fracture mechanics to concrete. In this study, the J -integral method and the COD method mainly used in the analysis of nonlinear fracture mechanics, were introduced and the three point bending test was carried out for investigating the effects of the variation of the maximum aggregate size and notch depth on the fracture behavior and the crack growth of concrete, and the relationships of fracture energy and crack opening displacement. According to the results of this study the more the maximum aggregate size and the notch depth increased, the more the nonlinearity of load-deflection behavior was remarkable. The increase of the coarse aggregate size created the more ductility of concrete. Thus concrete showed the more stable fracture. As for the path of the crack growth, the more the coarse aggregate size increased, the more it was irregulary deviated from the straight line but it was not almost affected by the variation of the notch depth. Also, the fracture energy increased according as the coarse aggregate size increased and the notch depth decreased.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.19-32
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• 2013

Cracking at low temperatures is one of the frequently observed modes of failure in asphalt concretes. In this investigation, fracture tests were performed on cracked asphalt concrete subjected to pure mode I and pure mode II loading at different subzero temperatures. An improved semi-circular bend (SCB) specimen containing a vertical crack was used to conduct the experiments. The SCB specimens produced from the gyratory compacted cylindrical samples were compressively loaded, and critical stress intensity factors, $K_{If}$ and $K_{IIf}$, were then calculated using peak loads obtained from the tests. The experimental results showed that with decreasing the temperature, mode I and mode II critical stress intensity factors increased first but below a certain temperature they both decreased. It was also found that at a fixed temperature, the mode II fracture resistance of the asphalt concrete was higher than its mode I fracture resistance.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.337-354
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• 2016

To study the influence on fracture properties of reinforced concrete wedge splitting test specimens by the addition of reinforcement, and the restriction of steel bars on crack propagation, 7 groups reinforced concrete specimens of different reinforcement position and 1 group plain concrete specimens with the same size factors were designed and constructed for the tests. Based on the double-K fracture criterion and tests, fracture toughness calculation model which was suitable for reinforced concrete wedge splitting tensile specimens has been obtained. The results show that: the value of initial craking load Pini and unstable fracture load Pun decreases gradually with the distance of reinforcement away from specimens's top. Compared with plain concrete specimens, addition of steel bar can reduce the value of initial fracture toughness KIini, but significantly increase the value of the critical effective crack length ac and unstable fracture toughness KIun. For tensional concrete member, the effect of anti-cracking by reinforcement was mainly acted after cracking, the best function of preventing fracture initiation was when the steel bar was placed in the middle of the crack, and when the reinforcement was across the crack and located away from crack tip, it plays the best role in inhibiting the extension of crack.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 1994.10a
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• pp.279-284
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• 1994

Fracture mechanics does work for concrete, provided that one used a proper, nonlinear form of fracture mechanics in which a finite nonlinear zone at fracture front is being considered. The fracture process zone is a region ahead of a traction-free crack, in which two major mechanisms, microcracking and bridging, play important rules. The toughness due to bridging is dominant compared to the toughness induced by the microcracking, so that the bridging is the dominant mechanism governing the fracture process of concrete. In this paper the bridging zone, which is a part of extended macrocrck with stresses transmitted by aggregates in concrete, is modelled by a Dugdale-Barenblatt type model with lenear tension-softening curve for the analyses of crack growth in concrete Finite element technique is shown for inplementation of the model.