STUDIES ON CRACK INTERACTION MECHANISM

Abstract

Crack interaction is an important subject in study of cracks because local stress field in the vicinity of the crack tip is appreciably affected by the occurrence of neighboring cracks. In this dissertation, numerical modeling of various discrete cracks based fictitious crack model is done in finite element platform Abaqus using extended finite element. cause of fracture process zone in concrete is incorporated by means of cohesive zone technique. Numerical simulation of different cracking behaviour of concrete beam is done based on load displacement curve, load versus crack opening displacement, crack propagation charts and coefficient of interaction. Under the given loading conditions, the cracking behavior of the plain concrete beam is shown to depend on the initial arrangement of notches and their sizes. It is found that the intensity of crack interaction and its effect on crack localization can vary. As the crack localization progresses, the stress concentration at the dominant crack intensifies, and the crack interaction diminishes quickly.