Evaluation of stress intensity factors for bi-material interface cracks using displacement jump methods

The aim of the present work is to investigate the numerical modeling of interfacial cracks that may appear at the interface between two isotropic elastic materials. The extended finite element method is employed to analyze brittle and bi-material interfacial fatigue crack growth by computing the mixed mode stress intensity factors(SIF). Three different approaches are introduced to compute the SIFs. In the first one, mixed mode SIF is deduced from the computation of the contour integral as per the classical J-integral method,whereas a displacement method is used to evaluate the SIF by using either one or two displacement jumps located along the crack path in the second and third approaches. The displacement jump method is rather classical for mono-materials,but has to our knowledge not been used up to now for a bimaterial. Hence, use of displacement jump for characterizing bi-material cracks constitutes the main contribution of the present study. Several benchmark tests including parametric studies are performed to show the effectiveness of these computational methodologies for SIF considering static and fatigue problems of bi-material structures. It is found that results based on the displacement jump methods are in a very good agreement with those of exact solutions, such as for the J-integral method, but with a larger domain of applicability and a better numerical efficiency(less time consuming and less spurious boundary effect).

Analysis of composite material interface crack face contact and friction effects using a new node-pairs contact algorithm

A new node-pairs contact algorithm is proposed to deal with a composite material or bi-material interface crack face contact and friction problem （e.g., resistant coating and thermal barrier coatings） subjected to complicated load conditions. To decrease the calculation scale and calculation errors, the local Lagrange multipliers are solved only on a pair of contact nodes using the Jacobi iteration method, and the constraint modification of the tangential multipliers are required. After the calculation of the present node-pairs Lagrange multiplier, it is turned to next contact node-pairs until all node-pairs have finished. Compared with an ordinary contact algorithm, the new local node-pairs contact algorithm is allowed a more precise element on the contact face without the stiffness matrix singularity. The stress intensity factors （SIFs） and the contact region of an infinite plate central crack are calculated and show good agreement with those in the literature. The contact zone near the crack tip as well as its influence on singularity of stress fields are studied. Furthermore, the frictional contacts are also considered and found to have a significant influence on the SIFs. The normalized mode-II stress intensity factors KII for the friction coefficient decrease by 16% when f changes from 1 to 0.

Ethanol based foamed asphalt as potential alternative for low emission asphalt technology

Foamed asphalt typically relies on water as a foaming agent because water becomes gaseous at elevated temperatures, generating numerous tiny bubbles in the asphalt and causing spontaneous foaming. In this study, ethanol was used as a potential alternative to water as a foaming agent. Ethanol is expected to be a physical blowing agent in the same manner as water, except it requires less energy to foam due to its 78 ℃ boiling point. This study compares the performance of water and ethanol as foaming agents through the measurements of rotational viscosity, the reduction in temperature during foaming, and volatile loss. The ethanol-foamed asphalt binders were prepared at 80 ~C and 100 ~C, while the water-foamed asphalt binders were prepared at 100 ~C and 120 ~＇C. Additionally, the rolling thin film oven （RTFO） was used to generate short-term aging of the foamed asphalt binders. A rotational viscometer was used to determine the viscosity of the asphalt binders at 80 ~C, 100 ~C, 120 ~C, 140 ~C, and 160 ~C. Overall, ethanol can function in the same manner as water but requires less energy to foam. It is proven based on the smaller drop in temperature of the asphalt binder foamed using ethanol compared with that prepared with water. This is due to the lower latent heat capacity of ethanol, which requires less energy to vaporize compared with water. Through the rotational viscometer test, ethanol performs better in lowering the viscosity of asphalt binders, which is essential in allowing produc- tion processes at low temperatures, as well as a better workability and aggregate coating. Ethanol can be expelled from the foamed asphalt binders at a higher rate due to its lower boiling point and latent heat.