Fracture Processes in Concrete and Fiber Reinforced Cementitious Composites

Abstract

This paper discusses the fracture processes of concrete and fiber reinforced cementitious composites with special focus on the development of the fracture process zone with respect to the stress‐separation constitutive relation of such materials. The suggestion is that the overall mechanical behavior of a concrete or FRC structure could be strongly influenced by the stress‐separation constitutive relation, which in turn could be altered by engineering the microstructure of the material, especially in FRC. The process zone length is found not be a material property, but depends on the geometry of the specimen and the loading configurations. All these results are shown explicitly by a simple numerical model of a center‐cracked panel subject to remote edge loading or to wedge loading on the crack faces. These calculations also provide further understanding to the validity of certain failure criteria.