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A Nondestructive Method For The Determination Of Fracture Energy In Concrete Structures, Been-Jyh Yu

Dissertations

It is generally believed that linear elastic fracture mechanics concepts can not be employed in determining fracture parameters in concrete, and therefore most of the current research effort has focused on applying the principles in yielding fracture mechanics. Despite all these efforts, comparison of results reported by many investigators indicate wide variations in fracture toughness values even for essentially similar materials. The main source of discrepancy in the observed results is the existence of a large process zone at the crack tip. Hence, the amount of energy consumed in advancing the crack will depend on the size of the process …