• Transactions of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.23-29
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• 2007

Fracture behavior of brittle solids such as rocks, ceramics and concrete is closely related to microcracking. A meso-scale analysis method using the natural element method is proposed for the analysis of material damage of brittle microcracking solids. The microcracking is assumed to occur along Voronoi edges in the Voronoi diagram generated using the nodal points as the generators. The mechanical effect of microcracks is considered by controlling the material constants in the neighborhood of the microcracks. The proposed meso analysis method is applied to the simulation of the microcracking behaviors of brittle solids subjected to uniaxial and biaxial macrostress. The obtained results are in good agreement with the results by computational damage mechanics model. The validity of the proposed method has been demonstrated by these numerical examples.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.724-730
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• 2006

Fracture behavior of brittle solids is closely related to microcracking. A meso-scale analysis method using the natural element method is proposed for the analysis of brittle microcracking solids. The microcracking is assumed to occur along Voronoi edges in the Voronoi diagram generated using the nodal points as the generators. The mechanical effect of microcracks is considered by controlling the material constants in the neighborhood of the microcracks. The meso-analysis method is applied to the simulation of the microcracking behaviors of brittle solids subjected to tensile macrostress. The method is also applied to the analysis of the propagation of a macrocrack accompanied by the coalescence with microcracks formed near the macrocrack-tip.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.132-138
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• 1999

In order to investigate the toughening characteristic by microcrack formation in ceramic composites, $Al_2$O$_3$/(0~20)vol% YAG composites containing equiaxed second grains were fabricated using$ Al_2$$O_3$ during hot-pressing. AE(acoustic emission) measurements have been coupled with fracture toughness experiments of SENB method, to evaluate the microcrack formation and the improvement in fracture toughness of ceramic composites. Formation of microcrack was detected by Ae. The generation of AE events increased with increasing of load when load was applied at specimen. The AE events are generated mainly around at maximum load. Specially, the detected AE evetns of composites are many as compared with monolithic $Al_2$$O_3$. Fracture toughness of composites was improved than that of monolithic alumina. $Al_2$O$_3$/YAG composites exhibit main toughening effects by microcracking, results from mutual coalesence of microcracks being generated under applied load. However, there are few toughening mechanism like microcracking in monolithic alumina.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2007.04a
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• pp.212-216
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• 2007

Predicting microcracking properties of the composite laminates in nonuniform stress conditions was the subject in this paper. The uniform stress field meant the stresses were independent of the width direction. The material was the 954-2A/IM7 laminates containing a central hole. Microcracks initiated at the edge of the hole and propagated into the laminate. Because the tensile stress concentration decreased with distance, the microcracks were arrested before the edge of the laminate. Because carbon fiber composites were opaque, a x-ray method was used to detect the length of the propagating microcracks. The microcracking at the near edge of the hole could be reasonably predicted by considering the local laminate stresses and the microcracking toughness measured in unnotched laminates. However, the date away from the hole did not agree with the predictions. The local microcrack density was always much higher than that predicted by the local laminate stress.

• The Korean Journal of Ceramics
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.78-81
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• 1999

Aluminium titanate is highly anisotropic in thermal expansion. As a result, thermal stresses build up in the material and intergranular cracks can develop. Both the outstanding thermal shock resistance and the low mechanical strength of aluminium titanate ceramics are a result of intergranular microcracking. The authors have previously identified a possibility of remarkably increasing fracture toughness of aluminium titanate without excessive penalty on strength. The paper shows that sintered density and porosity measurements can be used for optimizing the sintering and microstructure of aluminium titanate for an ideal balance between toughness and strength and, hence, the best thermal shock resistance.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.34 no.11
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• pp.1129-1138
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• 1997

Al2O3/20 vol%YAG composite containing equiaxed grains and Al2O3/20 vol%LaAl11O18 composite containing elongated grains were fabricated using Al2O3-Y2O3 composition and Al2O3-La2O3 composition, respectively, by hot-pressing. In order to investigate the influence of microstructural control of second phase on toughening effect of toughened ceramic composites, AE (acoustic emission) measurements have been coupled with fracture toughness experiments(SENB and SEPB method). A separation of the fracture toughness and analysis of toughening mechanism was possible using the AE technique. The fracture toughness of hot-pressed materials was estimated to be 3.2 MPam0.5 for monolithic alumina, 4.7 MPam0.5 for Al2O3/20 vol%YAG composite and 6.2 MPam0.5 for Al2O3/20 vol%LaAl11O18 composite. In monolithic Al2O3, toughening does not occur as a result of either microcracking or grain bridging, whereas, composites exhibit toughening effects by both microcracking in the frontal zone and gain bridging in the wake zone, resulting in an improvement of fracture toughness as compared with monolithic Al2O3. The fracture toughness of Al2O3/20 vol%LaAl11O18 composite is higher than that of Al2O3/20 vol%YAG composite. It may be attributed to the elongated microstructure of Al2O3/20 vol%LaAl11O18 composite, resulting relatively greater bridging effect.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.39-44
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• 2005

The effects of aging of PSF/AS4 laminates on fatigue was studied using the new energy release rate analysis. The analysis by the variational mechanics has been useful in providing fracture mechanics interpretation of matrix microcracking in cross-ply laminates. This paper describes the changes of the critical energy release rate (microcracking toughness) according to the aging period under fatigue loading. The master plot by modified Paris-law gives a characterization of a material system's resistance to microcrack formation. PSF $[0/90_{s}]_{s}$ laminates were aged at four different temperature based on the glass transition temperature for 0 to 60 days. At all temperatures, the toughness decreased with aging time. The decrease of the toughness at higher temperature was faster than at lower temperature. To assess the effects of aging on fatigue, the unaged laminates were compared with the laminates which had been aged for 60 days at 170$^{\circ}C$ near 180 $^{\circ}C$ t$_g$. The slope of dD/dN versus ${\Delta}G_m$. of the aged laminates was lower than that of the unaged laminates. There was a significant shift of the aged data to formation of microcracks at the lower values of ${\Delta}G_m$.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.261-270
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• 2021

In this study, a new understanding is presented on the microcracking behavior of high strength concrete (HSC) with steel fiber addition having prior compressive loading history. Microcracking behavior at critical stress (σcr) region, using seven fiber addition volume of 0.5, 0.75, 1.0, 1.25, 1.5, 1.75, and 2.0% was evaluated, at two aspect ratios (60 and 75). The specimens were loaded up to a specified compressive stress levels (0.70fc-0.96fc), and subsequently subjected to split tensile tests. This was followed by microscopic analyses afterwards. Four compressive stress levels as percentage of fc were selected according to the linearity end point based on stress-time (σ-t) diagram under uniaxial compression. It was seen that pre-compression has an effect on the linearity end point as well as fiber addition where it lies within 85-91% of fc. Tensile strength gain was observed in some cases with respect to the 'maiden' tensile strength as oppose to tensile strength loss due to the fiber addition with teething effect. Aggregate cracking was the dominant failure mode instead of bond cracks due to improved matrix quality. The presence of the steel fiber improved the extensive failure pattern of cracks where it changes from 'macrocracks' to a branched network of microcracks especially at higher fiber dosages. The applied pre-compression resulted in hardening effect, but the cracking process is similar to that in concrete without fiber addition.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.82-88
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• 1997

The goal is to assess the effect of fatigue loading on mechanical properties of Fiberite 934/T300 laminates of pressure vessel using the recent variational mechanics analysis. This analysis has been useful in providing fracture mechanics interpretation of matrix microcracking in cross-ply laminates. This paper describes using the new energy release rate analysis for a fracture mechanics based interpretation of microcrack formation during fatigue loading. The master plot by modified Paris-law gives a complete characterization of a material system's resistance to microcrack formation.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1995.04a
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• pp.35-41
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• 1995

Fracture Mechanics does work for concrete, provided that a finite nonlinear zone at fracture front is being considered. The development of model for fracture process zone is most important to describe fracture phenomena in concrete. 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 toughness induced by microcracking, so that the bridging is dominant mechanism governing the fracture process of concrete. In this paper the bridging zone, which is a part of extended macrocrack with stresses transmitted by aggregates in concrete, is model led by a Dugdale-Barenblatt type model with linear tension-softening curve. Two finite element techniques are shown for the model of fracture process zone in concrete.