Abstract
An anisotropic damage mechanics model is presented to describe the behavior and failure of concrete under biaxial fatigue loading. Utilizing the approach of bounding surfaces, the limit surface becomes a special case when the number of loading cycles is set to one. By increasing the number of loading cycles, the strength of concrete gradually decreases and the limit surface is allowed to contract and form new curves representing residual strengths. The magnitude of loading, load range, and the load path are known to influence the fatigue life and hence are addressed in this formulation. In this paper, a strength softening function is proposed in order to address the reduction in the strength of concrete due to fatigue. Separate softening functions are also proposed to account for the deformation characteristics in concrete under cyclic loading. Numerical simulations predicted by the model in both uniaxial and biaxial stress paths show a good correlation with the experimental data available in the literature.
Highlights
The fatigue behavior of concrete has received a considerable attention among researchers in the past two decades
Concrete has been used in various structures due to its unique features such as high compressive strength, good resistance to aggressive and moist environments compare to some other construction materials, and enhancement in strength and deformation capacity under confining stresses
Concrete has been used in dams, bridges, and highway pavements in which cyclic loading is considered as one of the factors affecting its mechanical behavior during its service life
Summary
The fatigue behavior of concrete has received a considerable attention among researchers in the past two decades. A softening function for the loss of strength based on the maximum stress, stress range, and load path is proposed These features are considered a significant improvement and extension to the work reported by Wen et al [16]. To capture the effects of fatigue on deformational characterization and material stiffness, two additional softening functions have been proposed to predict the ultimate and plastic strains in the last cycle of loading under any arbitrary fatigue loading. These additional features of the formulation are considered novel enhancing the predictive capability of the model. Results are compared with experimental data showing a good correlation
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