Numerical analysis of concrete under a wide range of stress and with different saturation condition

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the description of elastoplastic damage behavior of concrete under a wide range of confining pressure and different saturation conditions. Based on experimental investigations, two plastic flow mechanisms are identified: plastic shearing coupled with damage at low confining pressure and plastic pore collapse at high confining pressure. The plastic shearing mechanism describes plastic distortion and failure by the formation of shear bands. On the other hand, the pore collapse mechanism is related to the destruction of pore structures. Furthermore, influences of water saturation on the mechanical behavior of concrete are also studied in this paper. The increase of water saturation induces the decrease of capillary pressure leading to an additional plastic deformation. The proposed model is implemented in a fully coupled finite element calculation code. The performance of the model is examined by comparing numerical results with laboratory data issued from triaxial compression tests under a large range of confining pressures.