State-of-the-art review on fracture analysis of concrete structural components

This paper presents a critical review of literature on fracture analysis of concrete structural components. Review includes various fracture models, tension softening models, methodologies for crack growth analysis and remaining life prediction. The widely used fracture models which are based on fictitious crack approach and effective elastic crack approach have been explained. Various tension softening models such as linear, bi-linear, tri-linear, etc. have been presented with appropriate expressions. From the critical review of models, it has been observed that some of the models have complex expressions involving many parameters. There is a need to develop some more generalised models. Studies have been conducted on crack growth analysis and remaining life prediction using linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) principles. From the studies, it has been observed that there is significant difference between predicted and experimental observations. The difference in the values is attributed to not considering the tension softening effect in the analysis.