Size Effect on Strength of Quasibrittle Structures with Reentrant Corners Symmetrically Loaded in Tension

Abstract

The effect of V-notches (or reentrant corners) on fracture propagation has been analyzed for brittle materials, but not for quasibrittle materials such as concrete, marked by a large material characteristic length producing a strong size effect transitional between plasticity and linear elastic fracture mechanics. A simple size effect law for the nominal strength of quasibrittle structures with symmetrically loaded notches, incorporating the effect of notch angle, is derived by asymptotic matching of the following five limit cases: (1) Bažant’s size effect law for quasibrittle structures with large cracks for notch angle approaching zero; (2) absence of size effect for vanishing structure size; (3) absence of size effect for notch angle approaching π ; (4) plasticity-based notch angle effect for vanishing size; and (5) the notch angle effect on crack initiation in brittle structures, which represents the large-size limit of quasibrittle structures. Accuracy for the brittle large-size limit, with notch ang...