Analysis of Work-of-Fracture Method for Measuring Fracture Energy of Concrete

The role that plastic-frictional energy dissipation in the fracture process zone plays in the work-of-fracture method for measuring the fracture energy of concrete or other quasibrittle materials is analyzed, and a possible improvement of this method is proposed. It is shown that by measuring the unloading compliance at a sufficient number of states on the post-peak descending load-deflection curve, it is possible to calculate the pure fracture...