Abstract
Fatigue of concrete is a microcracking process leading to the change of the macroscopic material properties. In particular, progressive stiffness decrease and increase of total and residual strains are developed as a function of the number of cycles and the stress level. The influence of the fatigue process on the behaviour of structural members is complex, because a cyclic redistribution of stresses develops within the structure. Owing to this fact, the employ of S-N curves to estimate the fatigue life usually leads to extremely conservative results. In this paper, a fatigue model for concrete is presented accounting for the evolution of the material properties. The model is able to obtain the fatigue life and the evolution of stresses and strains. The results are compared with other available design rules and a modification is proposed to estimate the number of cycles to failure in a simple way for the engineering practice.
Highlights
Fatigue is defined as the weakening of a material caused by repeating loads whose maximum value is smaller than the static failure load of the material in question
In concrete fatigue, whose macroscopic result is the gradual deterioration of the mechanical properties of the material (2), these microcracks propagate to the point where their coalescence induces specimen failure
The macroscopic result is due to progressive microcracking
Summary
Fatigue of concrete is a microcracking process leading to the change of the macroscopic material properties. Progressive stiffness decrease and increase of total and residual strains are developed as a function of the number of cycles and the stress level. The influence of the fatigue process on the behaviour of structural members is complex, because a cyclic redistribution of stresses develops within the structure. Owing to this fact, the employ of S-N curves to estimate the fatigue life usually leads to extremely conservative results. A fatigue model for concrete is presented accounting for the evolution of the material properties. The model is able to obtain the fatigue life and the evolution of stresses and strains.
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