Modeling of fracture parameters for crack propagation in recycled aggregate concrete

•Fracture parameters of RAC with varying RCA content are determined using FCM and DKFM.•Pu and KICun, KICini and Pini of RAC decrease linearly with varying RCA content as predicted by FCM and DKFM respectively.•The ratio Pini/Pu and KICini/KICun are almost constant for NAC and RAC with varying RCA content.

The paper presents the applications of fictitious crack model and double-K fracture model, to determine the fracture parameters for crack propagation in recycled aggregate concrete with varying content of recycled concrete coarse aggregate. The required material properties for modeling applications are derived using various empirical relations, for the known values of compressive strength. The fracture parameters of normal and recycled aggregate concrete are determined and a systematic comparative study has been carried out. The outcome has revealed an interesting finding and thus it is concluded that these two conventional concrete fracture models can be implemented for the study of fracture behavior of recycled aggregate concrete with varying substitution of natural aggregate by the recycled aggregates.