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This paper presents the results of computer simulations of fracture in three laboratory tests: the three-point bending of a notched beam cut from sandstone, the pull-out test of a self-undercutting anchor fixed in sandstone, and the pull-out test of a bar embedded in concrete. Five material failure criteria were used: Rankine, Coulomb–Mohr, Drucker–Prager, Ottosen–Podgórski, and Hoek–Brown. These criteria were implemented in the Abaqus® FEA system to work with the crack propagation modeling method—extended finite element method (X-FEM). All criteria yielded similar force–displacement relationships and similar crack path shapes. The improved procedure gives significantly better, close-to-real crack propagation paths than can be obtained using the standard subroutines built into the Abaqus® system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, artificial intelligence plays a huge role in the mechanical engineering field for solving many complex problems and the problem with fracture mechanics is one of them. In fracture mechanics, artificial intelligence is used to predict crack behavior under various conditions such as mixed-mode loading. Many parameters are used for explaining the crack behavior under various conditions, but those parameters are obtained from destructive testing, in which usually, only one data point is obtained from each test. An artificial problem method requires a large amount of data to train the model to be able to learn crack behavior, which is a disadvantage of applying this method to fracture mechanics. To eliminate the disadvantage of the large amount of experiment data required for modeling, in this study, the small data obtained from the experiment along with data obtained from fracture criteria that were used for elementary prediction of mixed mode fracture toughness were used to create an artificial intelligence model. Data from the experiment was combined with fracture criteria data using the multi-fidelity surrogate model that is described in this study. The mixed mode I/II fracture toughness of the PMMA material was tested in order to primarily propose the data combination technique. After the modeling process, the prediction results indicated that the performance of a model in which the actual test data was combined with the data from the fracture criteria (multi-fidelity surrogate model) was more predictively effective compared to only actual data-based modeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In age-hardened high-strength aluminum alloys, the area with and around a joint has a large impact on the load-bearing capacity of a welded structure. Therefore, in this study the fracture behavior of welded EN AW 6082 T6 plates is investigated experimentally and numerically. From butt joints, smooth and notched tensile specimens as well as shear specimens have been manufactured and tested for the base material (BM), heat-affected zone (HAZ) and fusion zone (FZ). With numerical simulations of these tests, the dependency of the fracture strain on the stress triaxiality is determined, and two phenomenological fracture criteria are calibrated. Whereas the one-parameter Rice–Tracey/Cockcroft–Latham (RTCL) criterion describes the behavior of the tension specimens as accurately as the two-parameter Bao–Wierzbicki (BW) criterion, the BW criterion is more accurate for shear tests. Subsequently, the material model is validated on axial compression tests of welded X-profiles. The experiments comprise tests with different plate thicknesses (8 mm, 10 mm and 12 mm) and varying strain rates (up to 1/s locally), showing the same behavior for all specimens. After crack initiation within the FZ, coalescence of cracks leads to crack growth in axial direction and a subsequent reduction of the load-bearing capacity. This behavior is reproduced well by the numerical simulations with the BW criterion, whereas simulations with the RTCL criterion predict fracture initiation at too high displacements. Overall, the results show the strong influence of the ductility of the FZ on the crushing behavior of welded X-profiles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water–rock interactions can significantly deteriorate the physical and mechanical properties of rocks, and it has been identified as one of the significant factors influencing the stability and safety of structures in rock–soil engineering. In this study, the fracture mechanical properties of sandstone under periodic water–rock interactions and long-term immersion have been studied with central cracked Brazilian disk specimens. The degradation mechanism of water–rock interactions was also studied using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Finally, the generalized maximum tangential stress and generalized maximum tangential strain criteria were adopted to evaluate the experimental results. The results show that periodic water–rock interactions can remarkably affect the fracture resistance of sandstone. With the increase in the number of cycles, the pure mode I, pure mode II, and mixed mode fracture toughness decreases greatly, however, the values of KIf/KIC and KIIf/KIC decrease slightly. Furthermore, the fracture resistance of sandstone influenced by cyclic wetting–drying is more significant than long-term immersion. Moreover, the fracture criteria, which considers the effect of T-stress, can reproduce the test results very well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]