Papers by Keyword: Nonlinear Fracture Mechanics

Abstract: The Broumov group of churches was designed for the governing Benedictine abbey of St. Wenceslaw in Broumov by the famous Dientzenhofer family of architects, which helped define the Bohemian baroque style in the early 18th century. The paper shows numerical estimation of the bearing capacity. For the analysis were chosen the parts of enclosure walls from the selected Broumov Churches. The study summarizes the visual investigation and structural investigation using ATENA 2D software, to assess and verify the safety of the church walls regarding to the damages which currently suffers.

Abstract: The paper shows numerical investigation of decay and damage appearing in the All Saints church, which was selected from the Broumov group of churches. The study has been started off by summary of findings from preliminary historical, geotechnical background studies. Several conclusions of possible sources of decay and damage of the church were made. The most important sources include presence of moisture and possible differential soil settlement as a result of uneven deterioration of subsoil. In order to investigate the extent of damage series of FEM modeling was employed.

Abstract: The paper describes a summary of the complex approach to evaluation of quasi-brittle structures/structural members made of (advanced) cement based composites. It reviews chosen aspects and results of nonlinear stochastic analysis of structural members made of these composites and inserts them into the complex methodology. Application example illustrates the methodology.

Abstract: The phenomenon of interface crack propagation in concrete gravity dams underseismic loading is herein addressed. This problem is particularly important from the engineeringpoint of view. In fact, besides Mixed-Mode crack growth in concrete, dam failure is oftenthe result of crack propagation along the rock-concrete interface at the dam foundation. Toanalyze such a problem, the generalized interface constitutive law recently proposed by the¯rst author is used to proper modelling the phenomenon of crack closing and reopening at theinterface. A damage variable is also introduced in the cohesive zone formulation in order topredict crack propagation under repeated loadings. Special attention is given to the complexityresulting from the solution of the nonlinear dynamic problem and to the choice of the interfaceconstitutive parameters, taking into account the important size-scale e®ects observed in thesecyclopic structures. Numerical examples will show the capabilities of the proposed approachwhen applied to concrete gravity dams.