Size eect

• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.694.2015; http://www.civil.northwestern.edu/people/bazant/PDFs/Papers/S37.pdf

This paper surveys the available results on the size eect on the nominal strength of structures — a fundamental problem of considerable importance to concrete structures, geotechnical structures, geomechanics, arctic ice engineering, composite materials, etc., with applications ranging from structural engineering to the design of ships and aircraft. The history of the ideas on the size eect is briefly outlined and recent research directions are emphasized. First, the classical statistical theory of size eect due to randomness of strength, completed by Weibull, is reviewed and its limitations pointed out. Subsequently, the energetic size eect, caused by stress redistributions due to large fractures, is discussed. Attention is then focused on the bridging between the theory of plasticity, which implies no size eect and is applicable for quasibrittle materials only on a suciently small scale, and the theory of linear elastic fracture mechanics, which exhibits the strongest possible deterministic size eect and is applicable for these materials on suciently large scales. The main ideas of the recently developed theory for the size eect in the bridging range are sketched. Only selected references to the vast amount of work that has recently been appearing