Keywords: discrete elements method, cracking process, dynamic, crack, concrete, beam.

The process of cracking propagation has always aroused much interest among engineers. The presence of failures may compromise the structure lifetime. The understanding of the whole process of cracking propagation, as well as, the knowledge of the parameters that change around these failures is of great importance for the sizing of the structure components that are subjected to several external uploads.

Despite of being one of the new engineering fields, the cracking mechanics has already reached a very significant theoretical development. Our proposal here is to describe the cracking propagation process targeting the dynamic aspect. Thus, a new evaluation of a concrete beam subjected to a three-point bending test will be done as proposed by Peterson [1].

Three different forms of the material constitutive diagram will be presented, such as the linear, the bi-linear and the non-linear forms, and, their influences on the results are discussed with respect to the dynamic aspects of the cracking process, as well as, speed, acceleration, and change of cracking frame with time and energy spent. The study was based on the Hilleborg's fictitious crack model [2], which presents the advantage of describing the behavior of the cracking zone in a way simpler then others.

The discrete element method was used to map the structure, according to the way formulated by Hayashi [3], and an algorithm was implemented in Fortran by Shzu [4], which also provided an interface using ANSYS.

1

P.-E. Petersson, "Crack growth and development of fracture zones in plain concrete and similar materials", Report TVBM-1006, Div. of Building Materials, Lund Inst. of Tech., Lund, Sweden, 1981.

2

A. Hillerborg, M. Modéer, P.-E. Petersson, "Analysis of Crack Formation and Crack Growth in Concrete by Means of Fracture Mechanics and Finite Elements", Cement and Concrete Research, 6, 773-782, 1976. doi:10.1016/0008-8846(76)90007-7

3

Y. Hayashi, "Sobre um modelo de discretização de estruturas tridimensionais aplicado em dinâmica não-linear", Dissertação de mestrado, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brasil, 1982.

4

M.A.M. Shzu, "Avaliação do processo de ruptura em vigas de concreto considerando os aspectos dinâmicos", Tese de doutorado, Universidade de Brasilia, Brasilia, Brasil, 2006.

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