Concrete has traditionally been known as a material used widely in the
construction of roads, bridges and buildings. Since cost effectiveness
has always been one of the more important aspects of design, concrete,
when reinforced and/or prestressed, is finding more use in other areas
of application such as floating marine structures, storage tanks,
nuclear vessel containments and a host of other structures. Because of
the demand for concrete to operate under different loading and
environmen- tal conditions, increasing attention has been paid to study
concrete specimens and structure behavior. A subject of major concern is
how the localized segregation of the constituents in concrete would
affect its global behavior. The degree of nonhomogeneity due to material
property and damage. by yielding and/or cracking depends on the size
scale and loading rate under consideration. Segregation or clustering of
aggregates at the macroscopic level will affect specimen behavior to a
larger degree than it would to a large structure such as a dam. Hence, a
knowledge of concrete behavior over a wide range of scale is desired.
The parameters governing micro-and macro-cracking and the techniques for
evaluating and observing the damage in concrete need to be better
understood. This volume is intended to be an attempt in this direction.
The application of Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics to concrete is
discussed in several of the chapters.