Fracture mechanics of concrete: Material characterization and testing

1. Mechanics of material damage in concrete.- 1.1 Introduction.- 1.2 Mechanical strength of concrete.- 1.3 Stress and fracture analysis.- 1.4 Damage analysis of concrete beam in bending: effects of softening and loading step.- 1.5 Scaling of specimen size.- 1.6 Long time behavior and failure of concrete.- 1.7 Local and global stationary values of strain energy density function.- 1.8 General discussion.- References.- 2. Evaluation of concrete fracture.- 2.1 Introduction.- 2.2 Mechanism of failure in concrete.- 2.3 Behaviour of concrete under loading related to damage.- 2.4 Mechanical modeling of concrete by means of fracture mechanics.- References.- 3. Fracture toughness testing of cement and concrete.- 3.1 Introduction.- 3.2 Physical phenomena involved in fracture.- 3.3 Rate of loading effects.- 3.4 Notch sensitivity.- 3.5 Historical review of the applications of fracture mechanics to cementitious materials.- 3.6 Fracture toughness parameters and techniques.- 3.7 Valid specimen size.- 3.8 Conclusions.- References.- 4. Dependence of concrete fracture toughness on specimen geometry and on composition.- 4.1 Introduction.- 4.2 Resistance curves.- 4.3 Theoretical model.- 4.4 Uniaxial tensile stress-displacement relationship.- 4.5 Experimental investigation.- 4.6 Comparison with experimental data.- 4.7 Effects of compositions.- References.- 5. Microcracking in concrete.- 5.1 Introduction.- 5.2 Microcracking of concrete.- 5.3 Methods of study of microcracking.- 5.4 Effects of microcracks on the properties of concrete.- 5.5 Cracking of higher-strength versus lower-strength concrete.- 5.6 Summary.- References.- 6. Interferometry in scattered coherent light applied to the analysis of cracking in concrete.- 6.1 Introduction.- 6.2 The suitability of interferometric methods in scattered coherent light in the analysis of concrete cracking.- 6.3 Significance and quality of fringes obtained with interferometry in scattered coherent light.- 6.4 Comparative summary.- 6.5 Application of interferometric methods in scattered coherent light to the analysis of concrete cracking.- 6.6 Conclusion.- References.- Author index.