Fracture Mechanics of Concrete Gravity Dams

Abstract

A comprehensive investigation on the behavior of cracked concrete gravity dams using fracture mechanics concepts through a series of parametric studies is presented. The effect of various forms of loading, concrete age and anisotropy on the stress intensity factors, direction of crack profiles, crack lengths and stress redistribution is assessed. . 3Head, Analytical Design Section, Concrete Dams Branch, Bureau of Reclamation, Denver, CO. 312 strain curve and are giving more attention to the effect of cracking (micro and macro) on the nonlinear response of concrete structures.

Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Intact and Cracked Steel Plates under tensile loading using Non-local Method

“…3. Sauma [42] presents the stress-strain fields around the crack tip in the plate using the stress intensity factors in the elastic regime.…”

Modeling tensile crack propagation in concrete gravity dams via crack-path-field and strain injection techniques

“…In previous works of the authors, the strain-injection techniques were used in combination with a standard displacement-based finite element formulation whereas in the present work, we propose a modification consisting of using, as underlying formulation, the mixed stabilized mixed formulation. The reasons for this option are mainly related to the brittleness of the fracture process in large structures, as is the case of concrete dams, since, due to smaller size of the fracture process zone in front of the overall structure size, the fracture type approaches a brittle fracture process [11][12][13][14][15].…”

“…Results obtained by the strain injection techniques at the final step of the computations. 11 The grey regions in Figure 11 b), at some distance of the crack path, correspond to regions where h approach zero outside the zones where the strain are localizing, do not having any physical meaning neither any influence in the computations (see REMARK 4-1).…”

“…The importance of computational methods in assessing dams safety and damage was soon recognized by some authors in the 1980s, which have used linear elastic fracture mechanics [11][12][13][14][15] to perform the first computational simulations of fracture in concrete dams. These authors argued that, due to the large size of dams, the fracture process zone is small in front of the overall structure and therefore linear elastic fracture mechanics can be applicable with limited errors, since failure occurs in a brittle (or quasi-brittle) manner.…”

Finite Element Modelling of Crackable Connecting Rods at Fracture Splitting Process

“…(10). Y is geometrical correction factor, it was taken 1.2 from reference for initially cracked cylinder under internal pressure [24]. Static stress intensity factor variation with crack length calculated from Fem analysis was compared with the analytic results in Fig.…”