Open Access

ARTICLE

A Study of Damage Identification and Crack Propagation in Concrete Beams

by A. Brasiliano¹, W.R. Souza², G.N. Doz³, J.L.V. Brito⁴

1 UFPE, Caruaru, PE, BRAZIL.
2 UnB, Brasília, DF, BRAZIL.
3 UnB, Brasília, DF, BRAZIL.
4 UnB, Brasília, DF, BRAZIL.

Structural Durability & Health Monitoring 2008, 4(2), 53-66. https://doi.org/10.3970/sdhm.2008.004.053

Abstract

It can be observed that usually, during structures useful life they are submitted to deterioration processes that, depending on the intensity, may affect their performance and load capacity and, as a result, their safety. In this case, it is necessary to accomplish an inspection in order to evaluate the conditions of the structure and to locate and quantify the intensity of the damage. Another important point is to study the behavior of brittle material beams with cracks, as an attempt of understanding the rupture mechanism and crack propagation phenomenon. In this paper, the Residual Error Method (Genovese, 2000) is applied to a concrete beam in order to identify and quantify damages in its structure. This method is based on the alteration produced by damage in the dynamic properties of structures. The results obtained by this method allowed to locate and to quantify damages in a beam. The phenomenon of crack propagation is studied by others methods too: the Fracture Mechanics approaches and the Discrete Element Method (DEM). Changes on the dynamic behavior, crack trajectories, peak loads and energy variations were observed during the simulation.

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Keywords

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