Fracture Toughness and Fracture Energy of Concrete (Developments in Civil Engineering, Vol 18)

The International Conference on Fracture Mechanics held in Lausanne in 1985 marked the end of the activities of the RILEM Technical Committee on Fracture Mechanics of Concrete (50-FMC). The first aim of the committee was achieved with the publication of a comprehensive state-of-the art report entitled Fracture Mechanics of Concrete (edited by F.H. Wittmann, Elsevier, 1983). At that time, research activities were concentrated essentially on the application of classical concepts of fracture mechanics to concrete. However, it has often been questioned if fracture mechanics can be applied to describe failure of concrete, and a new approach has been developed which is particularly suitable for finite element analysis. In this concept fracture toughness is replaced by fracture energy and thus the descending branch of the stress-strain diagram can be taken into consideration. As can be seen from the annotated bibliography covering the years 1982 to 1985 (included in this volume), many papers are still based on classical linear elastic fracture mechanics, while others have adopted the concept of fracture energy.