Wedge Splitting Test: Displacement Field Analysis by Multi-parameter Fracture Mechanics

Multi-parameter fracture mechanics is nowadays quite extensively applied when cracked structures/specimens are investigated. The reason was that it has been shown that it can be helpful and bring results that are more accurate when for describing of fracture processes a larger region around the crack tip is used. This can be typical for material like concrete or other materials with quasi-brittle behaviour. Various relative crack length configurations were chosen in order to investigate the importance of the higher-order terms of the Williams expansion (WE) on the crack-tip stress field distribution in Wedge splitting test specimen. The higher-order terms were calculated by means of the over-deterministic method from displacements of nodes around the crack tip obtained by a finite element analysis in different radial distances from the crack tip. The effect of the constraint level (second member of WE) was investigated. Although the third and higher terms of the Williams series are very often neglected, their influence on the opening stress values was investigated and discussed.