Experiments were carried out with an x-ray using contrast medium and three-dimensional acoustic emission (AE) techniques to investigate the behavior of the fracture process zone in concrete. The results show that, as the loading increases, a fracture process zone consisting…
Experiments were carried out with an x-ray using contrast medium and three-dimensional acoustic emission (AE) techniques to investigate the behavior of the fracture process zone in concrete. The results show that, as the loading increases, a fracture process zone consisting of numerous micro cracks or AE events develops ahead of the tip of the notch cut in the concrete compact tension specimen. The maximum width of the microcrack zone is strongly related to the maximum aggregate size of the concrete. The energy of each individual AE event was calculated and plotted on the three- dimensional map. The results obtained by the two methods were compared and related to provide a clear view of the fracture process zone of concrete.