Effects of Recycled Aggregate Replacement Rate on Compression Mechanical Behavior of Concrete Based on Base Force Element Method

Abstract

A meso-analysis method which is derived from the base force element method (BFEM) was proposed for recycled aggregate concrete (RAC). A simple algorithm was used to generate the convex recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) model. Uniaxial compression numerical simulations were carried out on the numerical specimens with different replacement rates of RCA. The model predictions were in a good agreement with the test results. The proposed method is very promising. It can totally predict the full stress-strain curve of RAC, as well as the failure process and failure mode, including strain softening and strain localization.