Abstract
Quasi-brittle materials are characterised by tension softening behaviour after the attainment of their tensile strength. The micromechanical description of this behaviour introduces an internal length scale, called the characteristic length of the material. Structures made from quasi-brittle materials are known to exhibit a strong size effect. Several cohesive crack models have been proposed to explain this effect on the basis of dimensional considerations through the so-called brittleness number.
In this paper an inverse procedure for a cohesive crack model is exploited to provide explicit definitions of characteristic length and brittleness number from physical rather than dimensional considerations. The physical cause for the size effect is also identified.
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Karihaloo, B.L. (1997). Scaling Effects in the Fracture of Quasi-Brittle Materials and Structures. In: Willis, J.R. (eds) IUTAM Symposium on Nonlinear Analysis of Fracture. Solid Mechanics and its Applications, vol 49. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5642-4_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5642-4_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-6379-1
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