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Determination of the fracture parameters of concrete with improved wedge-splitting testing

Sun, L ; Sharif University of Technology | 2022

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  1. Type of Document: Article
  2. DOI: 10.1016/j.engfracmech.2022.108911
  3. Publisher: Elsevier Ltd , 2022
  4. Abstract:
  5. Considering the quasi-brittle mechanical properties of concrete, wedge-splitting tests are employed and improved in this paper to study the fracture behaviour of concrete. A novel wedge-splitting device is designed by fixing ten springs on the force transmission component. The adaptive spring force can be imposed on top of a concrete specimen to retard the brittle fracture process. With the proposed wedge-splitting test design for notched cuboid specimens, the complete load–strain/CMOD curves of concrete can be generated directly. The fracture toughness and the fracture energy can be calculated easily without numerical fitting using the double-K fracture model. The descending branch of the curve is verified by exponential and power function fitting, where the maximum relative error is approximately 15% and the average relative error is less than 6%. Moreover, the specimen strain distribution presents a polynomial deflection curve, with the upper part of the specimen in tension and the lower part of the specimen in compression, and the initial zero point is located at a crack growth ratio of approximately 0.53 relative to the whole fracture path. The concrete fracture process consists of an initial stage of crack growth, a long-term stable propagation stage, and an unstable propagation stage. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd
  6. Keywords:
  7. Concrete ; Fracture behaviour ; Fracture energy ; Fracture toughness ; Wedge-splitting test ; Concrete testing ; Concretes ; Crack propagation ; Curve fitting ; Fracture testing ; Concrete specimens ; Force transmission ; Fracture behavior ; Fracture parameter ; Fracture process ; Properties of concretes ; Transmission components ; Wedge splitting ; Wedge splitting test
  8. Source: Engineering Fracture Mechanics ; Volume 276 , 2022 ; 00137944 (ISSN)
  9. URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0013794422006294