Simulation of cohesive fracture method in concrete structures

Resumo

The objective of fracture mechanics is to analyze the materials behavior and its failure modes applied to structures. Thereby, it is possible to identify the parameters that impact directly on crack evolution. Geometry, loading, and material properties are examples of crucial failure factors. There are some existing methods to analyze structural collapses, but the cohesive fracture is well known because of its efficiency, being used to calculate many different engineering materials. This paper uses the fundamental concepts of cohesive fracture to link experimental and numerical data. In other words, this paper aims to study two different concrete structures in which were applied cohesive fracture method and then compare the theoretical results with experimental ones. Moreover, some parameters such as crack position, width, thickness, and fracture energy, were defined by finite element analyses. In general, the obtained results show conformity between both simulations.