Appropriate Mesh Design for Predicting Complete Fracture Behavior of Wires for Civil Engineering Applications

In published literature, emphasis has been on appropriate mesh design covering element size and element aspect ratio for two-dimensional (2D) cup and cone fracture predictions. Appropriate mesh design for accurate predictions of fracture load and displacement at fracture, which are more important for design, quality assurance, and integrity assessment purposes, has not been published. This work revealed that 2D simulations generally employed in published literature for cup and cone fracture predictions cannot accurately predict the complete fracture behavior of wires used for civil engineering applications. The displacement at fracture of $12\times 5{\mathrm{mm}}^2$ and $12\times 7{\mathrm{mm}}^2$ wires is proportional to element dimension in tensile loading direction. Three-dimensional simulation with global $1\times 1\times 1\mathrm{mm}$ elements and $0.0625\text{-}{\mathrm{mm}}^3$ refined elements at the wire model’s middle with an aspect ratio of $2:1$ represents an appropriate element size and element aspect ratio for accurate prediction of the wires’ complete fracture behavior. Positioning the $0.0625\text{-}{\mathrm{mm}}^3$ refined elements with local length, width, and thickness in the wire model’s global width, length, and thickness is required for accurate prediction of the wires’ complete fracture behavior.