On the damage and fracture of nuclear graphite at multiple length-scales

Experimentally informed micromechanical modelling of cement paste: An approach coupling X-ray computed tomography and statistical nanoindentation

“…Similar trend was observed in other quasi-brittle materials, e.g. nuclear graphite both experimentally [75] and numerically [67]. The value of Young's modulus obtained in the simulation (28.53 GPa) is in between the results reported by Lukovic et al (around 33 GPa) [33] and Zhang et al (25.4 GPa) [39], and close to the elastic resonance measurements (around 25 GPa) [76].…”

Combined experimental and numerical study of uniaxial compression failure of hardened cement paste at micrometre length scale

“…Likewise, similar trend has been found in terms of the splitting tensile strength measured by the authors [7]. This is mainly because of the fact the micro-scale sized samples are free from air voids or defects larger than the sample size, which creates more stress concentration spots, thus significantly reducing its material strength [2,51,52]. On the other hand, a large scatter is observed as a result of the heterogeneity of such material and small volume of material sampled.…”

Towards understanding stochastic fracture performance of cement paste at micro length scale based on numerical simulation

“…Clearly, the strengths obtained at the microscale are relatively high compared with conventional laboratory centimetre sized samples (3-6 MPa) [54]. A similar trend was observed in other quasi-brittle materials such as nuclear graphite both experimentally [55] and numerically [56]. This is attributed to the fact that at micro-scale, samples are free from air voids or defects larger than the sample size.…”