Effects of bond-slip on flexural behavior of reinforced nano-material modified UHPC beams: Experimental and numerical investigation

Abstract

A series of central pull-out tests were carried out to assess the bond performance between steel bar and nano-material modified ultra-high performance concrete (nano-UHPC). The effects of parameters, such as the type of concrete and steel bar, the diameter of steel bar, bond length, the thickness of concrete cover, the length and content of steel fiber, and the nanomaterial type and content, on the failure mode and the bond stress-slip relationship were analyzed in detail. Subsequently, a constitutive model was proposed based on the experimental results for the precise prediction of the bond stress-slip relationship. Furthermore, to illustrate the effectiveness of the constitutive model, a reinforced nano-UHPC beam under the monotonic lateral loading was tested, and numerically simulated by a precise finite element model incorporating the constitutive model. Parametric studies were also conducted to evaluate the effect of critical parameters of the constitutive model on the flexural behavior of the reinforced nano-UHPC beam. The experimental results revealed that there was a superior bond performance between the steel bar and nano-UHPC. The increase in the bond length and the ribbed steel bar diameter were not conducive to the bond performance, and so did the decrease in the concrete cover thickness, steel fiber length and content. Nano-SiO2 and nano-CaCO3 had a positive impact, whereas nano-Al2O3 showed a negative effect. The numerical results indicated that both the bond strength and modulus had a significant effect on the flexural behavior of the reinforced nano-UHPC beam, whereas the slope of descending segment of the bond stress-slip relationship had an insignificant effect.