TY - EJOU AU - Hu, Chengbao AU - Wang, Liang AU - Ling, Daosheng AU - Cai, Wujun AU - Huang, Zhijie AU - Gong, Shilin TI - Experimental and Numerical Investigation on the Tensile Fracture of Compacted Clay T2 - Computer Modeling in Engineering \& Sciences PY - 2020 VL - 123 IS - 1 SN - 1526-1506 AB - This paper performed flexural test and numerical simulation of clay-beams with different water contents to study the tensile fracture of clay soil and the relevant mechanisms. The crack initiation and propagation process and the accompanied strain localization behaviors were all clearly observed and analyzed. The exponential cohesive zone model was proposed to simulate the crack interface behavior of the cohesivefrictional materials. The experimental results show that the bending capacity of claybeams decrease with the water content, while those of the crack mouth opening displacement, crack-tip strain and the strain localization range increase. The numerical predictions successfully reproduce the evolving tensile cracks and the strain localization phenomenon of the clay beams with different fracture ductility, which demonstrates the validity of the proposed cohesive zone model in modelling clay fractures. KW - Clay KW - tensile fracture KW - flexural beam test KW - strain localization KW - cohesive element DO - 10.32604/cmes.2020.07842