Intrinsic damage characteristics for recycled crumb rubber concrete subjected to uniaxial pressure employing cohesive zone model

Abstract

To explain the intrinsic damage characteristics of recycled crumb rubber concrete (RCRC) under uniaxial pressure, in which fine aggregates are substituted for rubber aggregates in different contents from 10% to 30% of volume ratio, we apply cohesive zone model (CZM) in numerical simulation. The paper presents a numerical approach for modelling rubber-matrix-aggregate interfaces using CZM by implementing modified constitutive models named bilinear constitutive (BC) and exponential decline constitutive (EDC) in VUMAT. This numerical approach may account for RCRC under compression internal failure mechanism through simulating cracks. Testing results show that it is adaptable for unveiling the intrinsic damage principle of RCRC and expand the utility scope of CZM. In conclusion, it loads the foundation for optimization design of RCRC pavement structures, in which composite stress states dominated by uniaxial compression under wheel pressure of the traffic vehicles exist in road and bridge engineering.