A novel methodology for estimating damage evolution and energy dissipation for steel fiber reinforced concrete under flexural fatigue loading

Abstract

The present research proposes a novel methodology for estimating mechanical degradation for steel fiber reinforced concrete. An experimental campaign was carried out in order to characterize the fatigue response of the cementitious composite and to determine fatigue life using S-N curves based on Weibull distribution. Using the experimental results, two empirical correlations were proposed to estimate damage evolution and energy release growth rate as a function of the number of cycles. Both use the initial stiffness and the energy release of the studied material as an input, which are both evaluated as the flexural strength at 0.50 mm of crack mouth opening displacement.