Experimental study on the fracture process zone characteristics in concrete utilizing DIC and AE methods

Abstract

The present work focuses on investigating the characteristics of the fracture process zone (FPZ) in concrete. The Single-edge notched (SEN) concrete beams under three-points bending are employed for conducting mode I fracture propagation. The displacement fields on the specimen surface and the internal AE signal of specimen are obtained simultaneously in real time by digital image correlation (DIC) and acoustic emission (AE) techniques. The experimental and analytical results indicated that the crack tip position, the crack extension length and the stress intensity factors (SIF) are obtained dynamically and quantitatively by DIC technique, and the length of FPZ is identified, respectively, by DIC and AE techniques in the crack extension process. The distribution of internal AE events is consistent with that of FPZ identified from surface deformation of specimens.