Fracture Properties of Rock-Concrete Interface after Fatigue Loading
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 35, Issue 4
Abstract
To investigate the fracture properties of the rock-concrete interface after fatigue loading, fatigue tests with the maximum loads of 60% and 70% of the ultimate load were carried out under three-point bending (TPB) loading. After 80,000 fatigue loading cycles, the specimens were subjected to quasi-static TPB loading until failure. The fracture parameters—including the nominal initial fracture toughness , the nominal unstable fracture toughness , the critical crack length , the fracture energy , and the characteristic length —were obtained based on the experimental results. The test results indicated that the interfacial crack did not initiate in the fatigue tests if the applied maximum fatigue load was lower than the initial cracking load under quasi-static loading. However, microcracks would occur and accumulate around the precrack tip during the fatigue process, which generated a larger damage area than that under the quasi-static load condition. The larger damage area absorbed more energy provided by the applied loading in the subsequent monotonic TPB tests, leading to increases in the initial cracking load and the nominal initial fracture toughness. Accordingly, a distribution model of the nominal initial fracture toughness along the interfacial ligament was derived for the fatigued specimens. Furthermore, a crack propagation criterion based on the nominal initial fracture toughness was proposed and used to simulate the fracture process of the fatigued specimens. Good agreement between the experimental and numerical results validated the proposed distribution model and the crack propagation criterion.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China under the Grants of NSFC 52179123 and NSFC 51878117.
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Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 35 • Issue 4 • April 2023
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© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Apr 6, 2022
Accepted: Aug 3, 2022
Published online: Jan 28, 2023
Published in print: Apr 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Jun 28, 2023
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