Wedge Splitting Test and Inverse Analysis on Fracture Behaviour of Fiber Reinforced and Regular High Performance Concretes

The fracture behaviour of three fiber reinforced and regular HPC （high performance concretes） is presented in this paper. Two mixes are based on optimization of HPC whereas the third mix was a commercial mix developed by CONTEC ApS （Denmark）. The wedge splitting test setup with 48 cubical specimens was used experimentally and the cracked non-linear hinge model based on the fictitious crack model was applied for the interpretation of the results. The stress-crack opening relationships were extracted by using inverse analysis algorithm for various multi-linear softening curves. This showed that the refinement of the softening curves reflects in improved accuracy of the WST （wedge splitting test） simulation in comparison with bi-linear softening curves with acceptable increase of computational time. Furthermore, the fracture mechanics parameters such as COD （crack opening displacement）, fracture energy and characteristic length were experimentally determined. Experiments were performed at 1, 3, 7 and 28 days. Fracture energy, Gf, was found to increase with age, while the characteristic length, Lch, was found to decrease.

Application of Wedge Splitting Test in Refractories

This paper mainly describes fracture mechanics and the application of the newly developed wedge splitting test in evaluating the thermal shock resistance of refractories. It is necessary to evaluate fracture properties owning to the heterogeneity of refractories.

Properties of Phenolic Resins——CarboresP Binders for Magnesite Carbon Refractories

An environmental friendly carbonaceous material- carboresP （one of the Carbores series materials） was investigated for the production of MgO-C refractories in laboratory scale and field tests. The MgO-C specimens were produced with different CarboresP contents. The bulk density （180℃ × 48h）, CCS, apparent porosity （1000℃ ×3h ） and hot modulus of rupture （1400℃ ×0. 5h ） were tested and contrasted. The appropriate amount of carboresP was 1.0%. The amount of metallic additions can be partially substituted （reduced to 1.5% ）. The microstructure of resin-carboresP binder is anisotropic structure with high oxidation resistance and good thermal-shock stability. The Stress/strain curve indicates that the characteristic length, （LCH） of MgO-C brick with resin/CarboresP bonding has been improved, which means the MgO-C bricks have good mechanical flexibility and stresses absorbability. Field tests were done in slag line of a 40t LF-VD refining steel ladle using Resin/CarboresP bonded ＂ MT-14A MgO-C bricks. The result shows that the MgO-C bricks by ＂soft bonding＂ have good physical properties and excellent workability during production of the bricks . In contrast with traditional MgO-C brick used for secondary refining furnaces, the spalling tendency of the bricks could be reduced significantly. The average lining life of the resin/ CarboresP bricks has increased by 18. 4% comparing with the pure resin-bonded types.

Fractographic and Fracture Mechanical Investigations of Refractories under Different Loading Conditions

Crack initiation and propagation have been investigated under tensile and shear loading in ceramically and carbon bonded refractories.A wedge splitting test procedure and a modified shear test have been applied.Test results have been used for material characterization especially with respect to brittleness.Furthermore a microscopic fractographic test procedure was developed and applied on fractured test specimens.In order to explain brittleness dependence on structure properties correlation of fractographic and fracture mechanical results has been evaluated.Frequently brittleness reduction is achieved by a lower amount of transgranular crack propagation associated with a strength decrease while maintaining specific fracture energy unchanged.Deviations from pure linear fracture mechanics increase with decreasing brittleness and contribute to specific fracture energy.Shear specimens may show two generations of cracks,a first one initiated by tensile loads （stable propagation） and a second one by shear loads （unstable propagation）.

Advanced Measures to Characterize Mechanical Properties of Refractories

The thermomechanical modelling method is becoming an important tool nowadays for the refractory researchers, suppliers and end-users. On one hand, applications focus on the post-mortem thermomechanical analysis to interpret the occurred fitiluw phenomena of refractories in service. On the other hand, a priori investigation is very helpful for the design of refractory lining con- cepts before putting them into effect; as a result it will minimize the probability of refractory lining premature .failure and save costs for the refractory suppliers as well as for the end-users. For both investigation routines, suitable material constitutive models and testing approa- ches are of relevance. Existing material constitutive mod- els often used for refractories are the fictitious crack model acting for tensile failure, the Mohr - Coulomb or Drucker- Prager model describing shear failure, and the Norton - Bailey model representing creep. To charac- terize tbe tensile and shear fitilure of refractories at room temperatare and elevated temperatures, a wedge splitting test and a modified shear test can be applied, respectively. The creep behavior and corresponding creep parameters of refractories can be determined with an appropriate creep testing device at elevated loads. The proper appli- cation of material constitutive models and testing approa-ches allows for improving the thermo-mechanical modelling and the optimizatian of the lining design.

Critical crack tip opening displacement of different strength concrete

Critical crack tip opening displacement (CTODc) of concrete using experimental and analytical evaluation with seven different compressive strengths ranging from 30 up to 150 MPa was studied based on two types of fracture tests:three-point bending (TPB) and wedge splitting (WS).In the tests,the values of CTODc were experimentally recorded using a novel technique,in which fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors were used,and two traditional techniques,in which strain gauges and clip gauges were deployed.The values of CTODc of tested concrete were also predicted using two existing analytical formulae proposed by JENQ & SHAH and XU,respectively.It is found that the values of CTODc obtained by both experimental measurements and analytical formulae exhibit a negligible variation as the compressive strength of concrete increases,and the test geometry adopted has little impact on the value of CTODc.Regarding the experimental measurement of CTODc,the clip gauge method generally leads to a larger value of CTODc and shows a more significant scatter as compared with the other two methods,while the strain gauge method leads to a slightly lower CTODc as compared with the FBG sensor method.The analytical formula proposed by JENQ and SHAH is found to generally lead to an overestimation,while the analytical formula proposed by XU shows a good accuracy.

Regulation of Pore Structure and Hightemperature Fracture Behavior of CACbonded Alumina-Spinel Castables Based on Hydration Design

The lamellar hydrates of CAC were designed with the introduction of nano CaCO_(3)or Mg-Al hydrotalcite(M-A-H),and the effects on the green strength,pore structures,and high-temperature fracture behavior of alumina-spinel castables were investigated.The results show that nano CaCO_(3)or M-A-H stimulates rapidly the hydration of CAC and the formation of lamellar C_(4)AcH_(11)or coexistence of C_(2)AH_(8)and C_(4)AcH_(11)at 25℃.The formation of lamellar hydrates can contribute to a more complicated pore structure,especially in the range of 400-2000 nm.Meanwhile,the incorporation of well-distributed CaO or MgO sources from nano CaCO_(3)or M-A-H also regulates the distribution of CA_(6)and spinel(pre-formed and in-situ).Consequently,the optimized microstructure and complicated pore structure can induce the deflection and bridging of cracks,thus facilitating the consumption of fracture energy and enhancing the resistance to thermal stress damage.

Predicting unstable toughness of concrete based on initial toughness criterion

The fracture processes of concrete were described by a cohesive crack model based on initial toughness criterion. The corresponding analytical method to predict the instability state was proposed. In this model, the initial toughness was adopted as the crack propagation criterion and the weight function method was used to calculate the stress intensity factor and the crack opening displacement caused by the cohesive stress. The unstable toughness can be easily obtained using the proposed method without measuring parameters at the critical state that was necessary in traditional methods. The proposed method was verified by existing experimental data of wedge splitting specimens with different grades of concrete and the sensitivity of the results on the tensile softening curve was discussed. The results demonstrate that the proposed method can well predict the peak load, the critical effective crack length, and the unstable toughness of concrete specimens. Moreover, the calculated unstable toughness is not sensitive to the tensile softening curve.