A fracture mechanics approach to material testing and structural analysis of FRC beams

The presented work has been focused on strain-softening FRC and the interrelationship between material properties and structural behaviour. The main purpose was to establish a procedure for structural analysis of flexural members with a combination of conventional reinforcement and steel fibres. A systematic approach for material testing and structural analysis, based on fracture mechanics, has been used and covers: (1) material testing; (2) inverse analysis; (3) adjustment of the a-w relationship for fibre efficiency; and (4) cross-sectional and structural analysis. The results suggest that the approach used for the material testing provides the necessary properties to perform analyses based on non-linear fracture mechanics. The structural behaviour could be predicted with good agreement, using both FEM and an analytical model, and when comparing the peak loads obtained in the experiments with the results from the analyses, the agreement was good, with a high correlation. This demonstrates the strength of the fracture-mechanics approach for material testing and structural analysis.