The effective elastic moduli of concrete and composite materials

Abstract

In this paper, the analytical expressions of the effective elastic moduli E∗ for concrete or other composite materials under a uniform stress field, a uniform strain field and a uniform field at infinity are obtained based on elastic theory. The new expressions provide a better estimate of E∗ than the existing engineering formulas, and the differences between them are compared numerically. It is found that the effective elastic modulus E∗ depends not only on the geometrical and physical parameters of microstructure, but also on stress state. The value of E∗ is found to vary within a narrow region.