• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.195-202
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• 2018

Many laboratory experiments on crack propagation under uniaxial loading and biaxial loading have been conducted in the past using transparent materials such as resin, polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), etc. However, propagation behaviors of three-dimensional (3D) cracks in rock or rock-like materials under tri-axial loading are often considerably different. In this study, a series of true tri-axial loading tests on the rock-like material with two semi-ellipse pre-existing cracks were performed in laboratory to investigate the acoustic emission (AE) characteristics and propagation characteristics of 3D crack groups influenced by intermediate principal stress. Compared with previous experiments under uniaxial loading and biaxial loading, the tests under true tri-axial loading showed that shear cracks, anti-wing cracks and secondary cracks were the main failure mechanisms, and the initiation and propagation of tensile cracks were limited. Shear cracks propagated in the direction parallel to pre-existing crack plane. With the increase of intermediate principal stress, the critical stress of crack initiation increased gradually, and secondary shear cracks may no longer coalesce in the rock bridge. Crack aperture decreased with the increase of intermediate principal stress, and the failure is dominated by shear fracturing. There are two stages of fracture development: stable propagation stage and unstable failure stage. The AE events occurred in a zone parallel to pre-existing crack plane, and the AE zone increased gradually with the increase of intermediate principal stress, eventually forming obvious shear rupture planes. This shows that shear cracks initiated and propagated in the pre-existing crack direction, forming a shear rupture plane inside the specimens. The paths of fracturing inside the specimens were observed using the Computerized Tomography (CT) scanning and reconstruction.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.927-935
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• 2018

The mechanical behavior of the brittle material samples containing the internal and edge cracks are studied under direct shear tests. It is tried to investigate the effects of stress interactions and stress intensity factors at the tips of the pre-existing cracks on the failure mechanism of the bridge areas within these cracks. The direct shear tests are carried out on more than 30 various modeled samples each containing the internal cracks (S models) and edge cracks (E models). The visual inspection and a low power microscope are used to monitor the failure mechanisms of the tested samples. The cracks initiation, propagation and coalescences are being visualized in each test and the detected failure surfaces are used to study and measure the characteristics of each surface. These investigations show that as the ratio of the crack area to the total shear surface increases the shear failure mode changes to that of the tensile. When the bridge areas are fixed, the bridge areas in between the edge cracks have less strength than those of internal cracks. However, the results of this study show that for the case of internal cracks as the bridge area is increased, the strength of the material within the bridge area is decreased. It has been shown that the failure mechanism and fracture pattern of the samples depend on the bridge areas because as the bridge area decreases the interactions between the crack tip stress fields increases.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.723-737
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• 2016

In this paper an approach was described for determination of direction of sliding block in rock slopes containing planar non-persistent open joints. For this study, several gypsum blocks containing planar non-persistent open joints with dimensions of $15{\times}15{\times}15cm$ were build. The rock bridges occupy 45, 90 and $135cm^2$ of total shear surface ($225cm^2$), and their configuration in shear plane were different. From each model, two similar blocks were prepared and were subjected to shearing under normal stresses of 3.33 and $7.77kg/cm^{-2}$. Based on the change in the configuration of rock-bridges, a factor called the Effective Joint Coefficient (EJC) was formulated, that is the ratio of the effective joint surface that is in front of the rock-bridge and the total shear surface. In general, the failure pattern is influenced by the EJC while shear strength is closely related to the failure pattern. It is observed that the propagation of wing tensile cracks or shear cracks depends on the EJC and the coalescence of wing cracks or shear cracks dominates the eventual failure pattern and determines the peak shear load of the rock specimens. So the EJC is a key factor to determine the sliding direction in rock slopes containing planar non-persistent open joints.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.1047-1059
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• 2018

This paper focuses on the cracking and fragmentation process in rock materials containing a pair of non-parallel flaws, which are through the specimen thickness, under vertical compression. Several numerical experiments are conducted with varying flaw arrangements that affect the initiation and tensile wing cracks, shear crack growth, and crack coalescing behaviors. To obtain realistic numerical results, a parallelized peridynamics formulation coupled with a finite element method, which is able to capture arbitrarily occurring cracks, is employed. From previous studies, crack initiation and propagation of tensile wing cracks, horsetail cracks, and anti-wing cracks are well understood along with the coalescence between two parallel flaws. In this study, the coalescence behaviors, their fragmentation sequences, and the role of an x-shaped shear band in rock material containing two non-parallel flaws are discussed in detail on the basis of simulation results strongly correlated with previous experimental results. Firstly, crack initiation and propagation of tensile wing cracks and shear cracks between non-parallel flaws are investigated in time-history and then sequential coalescing behavior is analyzed. Secondly, under the effect of varying inclination angles of two non-parallel flaws and overlapping ratios between a pair of non-parallel flaws, the cracking patterns including crack coalescence, fragmentation, and x-shaped shear band are investigated. These numerical results, which are in good agreement with reported physical test results, are expected to provide insightful information of the fracture mechanism of rock with non-parallel flaws.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.219-229
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• 2019

This paper presents an experimental study on the structural performance of an innovative ultra-high performance fiber reinforced concrete (UHPFRC) deck with coarse aggregate of composite bridge under shear force. Test parameters included curing method and shear span-to-height ratio. Test results indicated that more short fine cracks developed beside the existing cracks due to the randomly dispersed fibers, resulting in re-distributing and homogenizing of the concrete stress beside cracks and allowing for the occurrence of more cracks with small spacing compared to normal strength concrete beams. Curing methods, incorporating steam curing and natural curing, did not have obvious effect on the nominal bending cracking strength and the ultimate strength of the test specimens. Shear reinforcement need not be provided for UHPFRC decks with a fiber volume fraction of 2%. UHPFRC decks showed superior load resistance ability after the appearance of cracks and excellent post-cracking deformability. Lastly, the current shear provisions were evaluated by the test results.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.49-58
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• 2018

Open-mode cracks could be commonly observed in layered rocks. A concept model is firstly used to explore the mechanism of the vertical cracks (VCs) in the top layer. Then the crack behaviour of the two-layer model is simulated based on a cohesive zone model (CZM) for layer interfaces and a plastic-damage model for rocks. The model indicates that the tensile stress normal to the VCs changes to compression if the crack spacing to layer thickness ratio is lower than a threshold. The results indicate that there is a threshold for interfacial shear strength that controls the crack patterns of the layered system. If the shear strength is lower than the threshold, the top layer is meshed by the VCs and interfacial cracks (ICs). When the shear strength is higher than the threshold, the top layer is meshed by the VCs and parallel cracks (PCs). If the shear strength is comparative to the threshold, a combining pattern of VCs, PCs and ICs for the top layer can be formed. The evolutions of stress distribution in the crack-bound block indicate that the ICs and PCs can reduce the load transferred for the substrate layer, and thus leads to a crack saturation state.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.981-997
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• 2016

To avoid the cracks of cast-in-place concrete in shear pockets and seams in the traditional composite beam with precast decks, this paper proposed a new type of prefabricated steel truss-concrete composite beam (ab. PSTC beam) with pre-embedded shear studs (ab. PSS connector). To study the initial cracking load of concrete deck, the development and distribution laws of the cracks, 3 PSTC beams were tested under hogging moment. And the crack behavior of the deck was compared with traditional precast composite beam, which was assembled by shear pockets and cast-in-place joints. Results show that: (i) the initial crack appears on the deck, thus avoid the appearance of the cracks in the traditional shear pockets; (ii) the crack of the seam appears later than that of the deck, which verifies the reliability of epoxy cement mortar seam, thus solves the complex structure and easily crack behavior of the traditional cast-in-place joints; (iii) the development and the distribution laws of the cracks in PSTC beam are different from the conventional composite beam. Therefore, in the deduction of crack calculation theory, all the above factors should be considered.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.189-197
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• 2018

A discrete element approach is used to investigate the effects of confining stress on the shear behaviour of joint's bridge area. A punch-through shear test is used to model the concrete cracks under different shear and confining stresses. Assuming a plane strain condition, special rectangular models are prepared with dimension of $75mm{\times}100mm$. Within the specimen model and near its four corners, four equally spaced vertical notches of the same depths are provided so that the central portion of the model remains intact. The lengths of notches are 35 mm. and these models are sequentially subjected to different confining pressures ranging from 2.5 to 15 MPa. The axial load is applied to the punch through the central portion of the model. This testing and models show that the failure process is mostly governed by the confining pressure. The shear strengths of the specimens are related to the fracture pattern and failure mechanism of the discontinuities. The shear behaviour of discontinuities is related to the number of induced shear bands which are increased by increasing the confining pressure while the cracks propagation lengths are decreased. The failure stress and the crack initiation stress both are increased due to confining pressure increase. As a whole, the mechanisms of brittle shear failure changes to that of the progressive failure by increasing the confining pressure.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.84 no.3
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• pp.375-391
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• 2022

This paper discussed and analyzed the interfacial stress distribution characteristic of adjacent cracks in Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) plate strengthened concrete slabs. One un-strengthened concrete test beam and four CFRP plate-strengthened concrete test beams were designed to carry out four-point flexural tests. The test data shows that the interfacial shear stress between the interface of CFRP plate and concrete can effectively reduce the crack shrinkage of the tensile concrete and reduces the width of crack. The maximum main crack flexural height in pure bending section of the strengthened specimen is smaller than that of the un-strengthened specimen, the CFRP plate improves the rigidity of specimens without brittle failure. The average ultimate bearing capacity of the CFRP-strengthened specimens was increased by 64.3% compared to that without CFRP-strengthen. This indicites that CFRP enhancement measures can effectively improve the ultimate bearing capacity and delay the occurrence of debonding damage. Based on the derivation of mechanical analysis model, the calculation formula of interfacial shear stress between adjacent cracks is proposed. The distributions characteristics of interfacial shear stress between certain crack widths were given. In the intermediate cracking region of pure bending sections, the length of the interfacial softening near the mid-span cracking position gradually increases as the load increases. The CFRP-concrete interface debonding capacity with the larger adjacent crack spacing is lower than that with the smaller adjacent crack spacing. The theoretical calculation results of interfacial bonding shear stress between adjacent cracks have good agreement with the experimental results. The interfacial debonding failure between adjacent cracks in the intermediate cracking region was mainly caused by the root of the main crack. The larger the spacing between adjacent cracks exists, the easier the interfacial debonding failure occurs.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.897-902
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• 2001

The purpose of this experimental study is to investigate the shear behavior of high-strength concrete deep beam and to grasp the conservatism of ACI Building Code. Experimental results on 12 deep beams under two equal symmetrically placed point loads are reported. Main variables are vertical and horizontal web reinforcement and shear span-to-overall depth ratio. Test results indicated that web reinforcement dose not affect on formation of inclined cracks but shear span-to-overall depth ratio affect on inclined shear cracks and ultimate shear strength. Addition of vertical web reinforcement improves ultimate shear strength of H.S.C. deep beams that shear span-to-overall depth ratio is 1.0. Considerable increase in ultimate shear strength of H.S.C. deep beams with increasing horizontal web reinforcement that shear span-to-overall depth ratio is 0.5. Especially with increasing concrete strength($f_{ck}$) the ACI code is conservative in estamating the ultimate shear strength of deep beams.