ABSTRACT
A gap test an experimental and numerical test, which is designed to show that the effective mode I fracture energy depends strongly on the crack-parallel normal stress. Talking about the fracture energy one should distinguish between the initial and the total fracture energy. According to Nguyen et al., the initial fracture energy is the area under the initial tangent of the traction–separation curve while the total fracture energy represents the area under the traction–separation curve. Alternatively one can estimate the total fracture energy as the area between the up-and-down curve and the horizontal yield line in the load-displacement diagram. Authors of this paper tried to recreate numerically the gap test with a concrete specimen and to calculate the total fracture energy. They used the concrete damaged plasticity model in Abaqus software. Results presented in this paper are continuation of the authors’ work, presented previously at the FraMCoS 2025 conference.
