Correlation between the internal length, the fracture process zone and size effect in model materials

In this paper. we examine the correlation between the width of the fracture process zone, the parameters entering in the description of size effect (related to the dimension of the specimen especially), and the internal length in non local constitutive relations for a model mortar material with a controlled macro-porosity. Experimental investigations on this material in compression, bending, acoustic emission measurements and their analysis are detailed. The experiments show a good agreement between the evolution of Bazant's size effect parameter do and the evolution of the width of the FPZ. The internal length obtained with the help of inverse finite element analysis is also proportional to these quantities. This correlation provides a reasonable approximation of the internal length, from an experimental test on specimens of a single size directly, equipped with acoustic emission localization devices. 1359-5997 (c) 2004 RILEM. All rights reserved.