Third M.I.T. Conference on Computational Fluid and Solid Mechanics June 14–17, 2005  

An embedded cohesive crack model for fracture of quasi-brittle materials

J.M. Sanchoa, J. Planasb, J.C. Gálvezc,*, E. Reyesd, D.A. Cendónb
aUniversidad Politécnica de Madrid, Departamento de Estructuras de la Edificación, ETS de Arquitectura, Avda. Juan de Herrera s/n, 28040 Madrid, Spain bUniversidad Politécnica de Madrid, Departmento de Ciencia de Materiales, ETSI de Caminos, Canales y Puertos. C/Prof. Aranguren s/n, 28040 Madrid, Spain cUniversidad Politécnica de Madrid, Departmento de Ingeniería Civil-Construcción, ETSI de Caminos, Canales y Puertos. C/ Prof. Aranguren s/n, 28040 Madrid, Spain dUniversidad de Castilla la Mancha, Departamento de Mecánica Aplicada e Ingeniería de Proyectos, Av. Camilo José Cela s/n, 13071 Ciudad Real, Spain
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ABSTRACT
This paper presents a simple embedded crack model, based on the cohesive crack approach, for the fracture of quasibrittle materials. A simple central force model is used to incorporate a cohesive softening curve (stress versus crack opening). The model requires only the elastic constants and a mode I softening curve. The need for a tracking algorithm is avoided by using a consistent procedure for the selection of the separated nodes. Numerical simulations of well-known experiments are presented.

Keywords:  Cohesive crack; Concrete fracture; Finite element method; Mixed mode fracture; Numerical analysis; Embedded crack
* Corresponding author. Tel./Fax: +34 91 336 5350; E-mail: jcgalvez@caminos.upm.es