Quasibrittle Fracture Mechanics and Size Effect

Book excerpt: Many modern engineering structures are composed of brittle heterogenous, or quasibrittle, materials. These include concrete, composites, tough ceramics, rocks, cold asphalt mixtures, and many brittle materials at the microscale. Understanding the failure behavior of these materials is of paramount importance for improving the resilience and sustainability of various engineering structures including civil infrastructure, aircraft, ships, military armors, and microelectronic devices. Designed for graduate and upper-level undergraduate university courses, this textbook provides a comprehensive treatment of quasibrittle fracture mechanics. It includes a concise but rigorous examination of linear elastic fracture mechanics, which is the foundation of all fracture mechanics. It also covers the fundamental concepts of nonlinear fracture mechanics, and introduces more advanced concepts such as triaxial stress state in the fracture process zone, nonlocal continuum models, and discrete computational models. Finally, the book features extensive discussion of the various practical applications of quasibrittle fracture mechanics across different structures and engineering disciplines, and throughout includes exercises and problems for students to test their understanding.