Fractal cracking of concrete: Parameterization of spatial diffusion

Concrete cracks on the tension face of beams in uniaxial bending are interp reted as a non-Fickian diffusive phenomenon resulting from a self-affine ra ndom fractal process. It is shown how a complete spatial description of the cracking geometry can be found from experimental data using both a (Hurst) scaling exponent and a diffusion-type coefficient. Once determined experim entally, these parameters are used to synthesize cracking patterns using fr actional Brownian motion functions. In addition, it is shown how an effecti ve Fokker-Planck diffusion equation can be used to describe the spatial geo metry of the cracking.