Evolutionary trace for ductile fracture performance of rubber−cement composites

In order to improve the plasticity of composites, rubber is usually incorporated in cement composites, but the rubber greatly increases complexity in the analysis of internal structures. In this study, X-ray computed tomography (XCT) and digital volume correlation (DVC) were adopted to investigate the internal structure and volumetric strain of rubber−cement composites during fracture. The fracture process of the composites was tracked by in situ XCT loading tests by analyzing the extracted data of rubber particles and cracks. The internal volumetric strains of the samples with different rubber contents at different loading stages were calculated by DVC. The outcomes exhibit that the degree of dispersion of strain and the conductivity to force of samples were improved significantly with the increasing rubber contents. •The internal volumetric strain of composite can be investigated by XCT and DVC.•This method allowed for exploring of the degree of dispersion of strain.•The maximum tensile and compressive strains in the samples were obtained by DVC.