Determining the Fracture Process Zone Length and Mode I Stress Intensity Factor in Concrete Structures via Mechanoluminescent Technology

The mechanoluminescent (ML) technology that is being developed as a new and substitutive technology for structural health monitoring systems (SHMS) comprises stress/strain sensing micro-/nanoparticles embedded in a suitable binder, digital imaging system, and digital image processing techniques. The potential of ML technology to reveal the fracture process zone (FPZ) that is commonly found in structural materials like concrete and to calculate the stress intensity factor (SIF) of concrete, which are crucial for SHMS, has never been done before. Therefore, the potential of ML technology to measure the length of the FPZ and to calculate the SIF has been demonstrated in this work by considering a single-edge notched bend (SENB) test of the concrete structures. The image segmentation approach based on the histogram of an ML image as well the skeletonization of an ML image have been introduced in this work to facilitate the measurement of the length of ML pattern, crack, and FPZ. The results show ML technology has the potential to determine fracture toughness, to visualize FPZ and cracks, and to measure their lengths in structural material like concrete, which makes it applicable to structural health monitoring systems (SHMS) to characterize the structural integrity of structures.