This book derives from the invited IUTAM Symposium in September 1993. The contributions discuss recent advances in fracture mechanics studies of concrete, rock, ceramics and other brittle disordered materials at micro and structural levels. It draws together research and new applications in continuum, damage and fracture mechanics approaches.

Fracture and Size Effect in Concrete and Other Quasibrittle Materials is the first in-depth text on the application of fracture mechanics to the analysis of failure in concrete structures. The book synthesizes a vast number of recent research results in the literature to provide a comprehensive treatment of the topic that does not give merely the facts - it provides true understanding. The many recent results on quasibrittle fracture and size effect, which were scattered throughout many periodicals, are compiled here in a single volume. This book presents a well-rounded discussion of the theory of size effect and scaling of failure loads in structures. The size effect, which is the most important practical manifestation of fracture behavior, has become a hot topic. It has gained prominence in current research on concrete and quasibrittle materials. The treatment of every subject in Fracture and Size Effect in Concrete and Other Quasibrittle Materials proceeds from simple to complex, from specialized to general, and is as concise as possible using the simplest level of mathematics necessary to treat the subject clearly and accurately. Whether you are an engineering student or a practicing engineer, this book provides you with a clear presentation, including full derivations and examples, from which you can gain real understanding of fracture and size effect in concrete and other quasibrittle materials.

Understanding of failure of quasibrittle materials is of paramount importance in many engineering fields. This subject has become a broad and important field of considerable mathematical complexity, with many competing models and unsolved problems. Attention in this volume focuses on concrete, rock, masonry, toughened ceramics, ice and other quasibrittle materials characterized by the development of large zones of cracking or other microstructural damage, and its localization into major fractures.

Despite tremendous advances made in fracture mechanics of concrete in recent years, very little information has been available on the nature of fracture processes and on reliable test methods for determining parameters for the different models. Moreover, most texts on this topic discuss numerical modeling but fail to consider experimentation. This book fills these gaps and synthesizes progress in the field in a simple, straightforward manner geared to practical applications.

The principal objective of this book is to relate the random distributions of defects and material strength on the microscopic scale with the deformation and residual strength of materials on the macroscopic scale. To reach this goal the authors considered experimental, analytical and computational models on atomic, microscopic and macroscopic scales.

Invited international contributions to this exciting new research field are included in this volume. It contains the specially selected papers from 45 key specialists given at the Symposium held under the auspices of the prestigious International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics at Turin in October 1994.

This work examines problems, particularly in mining and civil engineering, related to the destruction of heterogenous materials. It details the physical mechanisms of destruction, methods of damage and fracture modelling, and the application of models to the improvement of drilling efficiency.