Experimental study on the relationship between acoustic emission energy and fracture energy of crumb rubber concrete

Energy criterion is one important method of explaining the fracture behavior of a material; however, accurately determining the energy consumed in the fracture process is very difficult. Thirty-six notched 3-point bending specimens of crumb rubber concrete (CRC) beams with different rubber contents of 0%, 5%, 10%, and 15% were tested, and simultaneously acoustic emission (AE) released was recorded to investigate the relationship between the AE energy and the fracture energy of CRC during the fracture process. The test results show that the energy dissipation capacity increases with the increase of the mixed crumb rubber content. The characteristics of AE sources imply that mixed crumb rubber can effectively improve the crack distribution of CRC. Equations are proposed to obtain the fracture energy of CRC for different rubber contents by knowing AE energy. The present experimental study can be useful for the quantitative measurement of the fracture energy of CRC.