Fictitious Crack Modeling of the Fracture of a Refractory Ceramic: Fitting through Experimental Measurements of the Displacement Field around the Fracture Process Zone

Abstract

In this paper, we present the modelling of the fracture of a refractory ceramic using the fictitious crack model. The parameters of the tension-softening curve of the modelling are obtained, not by numerical fitting of macroscopical data, but after observation of the displacement field around the fracture process zone. The modelling obtained is compared with experimental data and previous modelling made by other authors, giving a good fitting of the experimental values and a modelling at least as good as the one obtained by numerical fitting.

On the calibration of cohesive parameters for refractories from notch opening displacements in wedge splitting tests

“…For instance, CZMs were used to study thermal shocks [11] and to check size effects and deviations from LEFM [7]. Later on, they were utilized for analyzing damage during thermal cycles [12] and fracture [13] in various refractories. The same models may also be used to study interface cohesion in such heterogeneous materials [14,15,16].…”

“…In few of the afore-cited references, the material parameters were estimated without experimental exploration [7,16]. Some of them briefly comment on parameter calibration without giving many details [12,13,14]. For the quantity to be optimized with respect to experimental information, the crack mouth opening displacement (CMOD) [11,17] or elastic properties obtained from acoustic measurements [15,17] can be used.…”

“…Jiménez-Piqué et al [13] mentioned the use of digital image correlation (DIC) in the calibration procedure of a Hillerborg et al [23] model. DIC was applied to estimate the "transition from microcracking to bridging and the approximate contribution of both mechanisms."…”