Textile reinforced concrete multiscale mechanical modelling: Application to TRC sandwich panels

Abstract

The present study establishes a numerical strategy for describing the textile/concrete bond behaviour in textile-reinforced concrete (TRC) composites that separates the cohesive and coulomb friction contributions.The textile-concrete bond approach, validated on an existing pull out test in the literature, has been used to calibrate the textile-concrete bond slip law of an existing TRC tested in tension by an innovative inverse approach thanks to its pull-out mode of failure.The calibrated bond slip law has been used as an input parameter to produce an enhanced TRC multiscale numerical model that is based on the nonlinear behaviour of its constitutive components (concrete, textile, and textile-concrete bond slip law) and takes into account all the damage mechanisms of TRC, which are mainly characterized by matrix cracking and yarn pull-out. The model has been validated on the basis of the previous TRC experimental tensile test.Two approaches have been used to account for the mechanical behaviour of a textile-reinforced concrete sandwich panel under a four-point bending test: a macroscopic 3D finite element approach, which considers the composite TRC with its macro tri-linear stress – strain relation under tensile solicitation, and the proposed TRC multiscale 3D finite element approach which, involves definition of the textile-concrete interaction bond slip law. More accurate results have been achieved with the multiscale approach; furthermore, the experimental mode of failure of the sandwich panel has been captured.