A Fractional Brownian Motion Model of Cracking
Abstract
An attempt is made to find the fractal cutoff of crack profiles on the tension face of concrete beams subjected to uni-axial bending. Previous work by the authors has shown that such cracking can be interpreted as a non-Fickian diffusive phenomenon resulting from a self-affine random fractal process: specifically fractional Brownian motion (fBm). In addition, a spatial description of the cracking geometry can be found from experimental data using both a (Hurst) scaling exponent and a diffusion-type coefficient. Herein the authors find that the fractal description of the crack profiles extends down to less than 0.75 microns. The use of a scanning electron microscope to probe the crack profile (and surface) at smaller scales is discussed and the synthesis of crack surfaces using fBm is described briefly.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2000
- Accession Number
- ADP010905
Entities
People
- A. S. Ndumu
- L. T. Dougan
- P. S. Addison
- W. M. C. Mackenzie