Size effect on quasi-brittle fracture pertinent to microstructure and plastic limit

Abstract Many fracture models have data-fitting parameter(s). In this paper, an explicit probabilistic fracture model was proposed by considering microstructure, plastic limit and size effect. Normal distribution with fixed mean and standard deviation was incorporated to characterize inevitable scatter of fracture strength from material heterogeneity and machining errors. The fracture measurements on concretes (aggregate size dmax: 5.25 to 21 mm) and mortar under different loadings were used to validate proposed model, and found predicted curves could cover all experimental data. The results indicate that proposed model could predict facture of quasi-brittle materials with different dmax and under different loading ways.