A METHOD FOR SIMULATING THREE-PHASE MESO-STRUCTURE OF CONCRETE USING DAMAGE MODEL

Abstract

 This paper proposes a method for simulating meso-scale fracture behavior of concrete with interfacial weakness using a damage model. An outstanding feature of the damage model is the ability to analyze the crack propagation in heterogeneous materials with interfacial weakness by using the volume fraction of each material in finite element that does not conform to material interfaces. Several numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the validity and availability of the proposed method. First, the formulation of the damage model is verified in one-dimensional problem. The applicability of the method to image-based analysis of concrete’s meso-structure is then demonstrated in two-dimensional beam problem. Finally, the comparison between numerical and experimental results in three-point bend test of concrete beam reveals that the proposed method allows us to simulate the three-dimensional meso-scale fracture behavior of concrete in agreement with that observed experimentally.