An analytical approach for the fracture characterization of concrete under cyclic loading

Abstract

Many civil engineering infrastructures frequently encounter repetitive loading during their service life. Due to the inherent complexity observed in concrete, like quasi-brittle materials, understanding the fatigue behavior in concrete still poses a challenge. Moreover, the fracture process zone characteristics ahead of the crack tip have been observed to be different in fatigue loading than in the monotonic cases. Therefore, it is crucial to comprehend the energy dissipation associated with the fracture process zone (FPZ) due to repetitive loading. It is well known that energy dissipation due to cyclic loading provides a better understanding of the fracture behavior of concrete. Under repetitive load cycles, concrete members exhibit a two-stage energy dissipation process. Experimentally, it has been observed that the rate of energy dissipation decreases initially with an increase in crack length and subsequently increases. In this work, an attempt has been made to propose an analytical expression to predict energy dissipation as a function of crack length, and the fully developed fracture process zone length under cyclic loading condition.