Abstract
The results are presented of an experimental post-mortem investigation on concrete fracture surfaces of specimens broken in direct tension. Four numerical methods are implemented and applied to digitized profiles in order to extract their fractal dimension D. On the other hand, not a unique value of D can be defined for each profile but a continuously decreasing fractal dimension with increasing scale length. This implies that the effect of microstructural disorder on the mechanical behavior becomes progressively less important at larger scales, whereas it represents the fundamental feature at smaller scales. The values provided by this analysis are then related to the renormalized fracture energy of the material, in order to explain the well-known size effect on the nominal fracture energy. The multifractal (self-affine) nature of the fracture surfaces of disordered materials produces a dimensional increment with respect to the number 2. Variations in the fractal dimension of fracture surfaces produce variations in the physical dimension of toughness and not, as asserted by some authors, in the measure of toughness.
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Carpinteri, A., Chiaia, B., Maradei, F. (1995). Experimental Determination of the Fractal Dimension of Disordered Fracture Surfaces. In: Sih, G.C., Carpinteri, A., Surace, G. (eds) Advanced Technology for Design and Fabrication of Composite Materials and Structures. Engineering Applications of Fracture Mechanics, vol 14. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8563-7_19
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8563-7_19
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