A dimensional analysis approach to fatigue in quasi-brittle materials

Abstract

In this study, a generalized Barenblatt and Botvina dimensional analysis approach to fatigue crack growth is proposed in order to highlight and explain the deviations from the classical power-law equations used to characterize the fatigue behaviour of quasi-brittle materials. According to this theoretical approach, the microstructural-size (related to the volumetric content of fibres in fibre-reinforced concrete), the crack-size, and the size-scale effects on the Paris’ law and the Wöhler equation are presented within a unified mathematical framework. Relevant experimental results taken from the literature are used to confirm the theoretical trends and to determine the values of the incomplete self-similarity exponents. All these information are expected to be useful for the design of experiments, since the role of the different dimensionless numbers governing the phenomenon of fatigue is herein elucidated.