A unique constitutive model for fibre reinforced concrete (FRC) is presented, which combines a number of mechanics-based sub models for the simulation of directional cracking, rough crack contact and the crack-bridging action of fibres. The model also contains a plasticity component to simulate compressive behaviour. The plasticity component employs a frictional hardening/softening function which considers the variation of compressive strength and strain at peak stress with fibre content. Numerical results from a range of single-point and finite element simulations of experimental tests show that the model captures the characteristic behaviour of conventional fibre reinforced concrete with good accuracy.

The paper presents an overview of a finite element approach for the analysis of the thermohygro-mechanical-hydration behaviour of concrete structures. The thermo-hygro component considers the mass balance equation of moisture as well as the enthalpy balance equation, and uses two primary variables, namely the capillary pressure and temperature. Heat of hydration is simulated using the approach of Schlinder and Folliard. The basic mechanical model simulates directional cracking, rough crack closure and crushing using a plastic-damage-contact approach. Hydration dependency is introduced into the mechanical constitutive model. The material data from the Concrack benchmark (CEOS.fr,2013) are considered with the model. This includes data on adiabatic temperature changes during curing, changing elastic properties during curing, shrinkage and creep. The model, as implemented in the finite element program LUSAS, is used to analyse the Concrack benchmark beam RL1. Particular attention is paid to crack openings and the difference between predicted crack openings from analyses with and without time dependent effects. It is concluded that ignoring time dependent effects can result in a significant underestimate of crack openings in the working load range.

A new 3D finite element concrete model is described. The model brings together two recently developed sub-models for simulating cracking and crack contact behaviour, both of which use smoothed evolution functions, with a triaxial plasticity model component. A number of examples are presented that validate the model using a range of plain and reinforced concrete test data. These examples demonstrate that the model is numerically robust, has good equilibrium convergence performance and is objective with respect to mesh grading and increment size. The examples also illustrate the model's ability to predict peak loads, failure modes and post-peak responses.

This paper presents result of research on the application of a Portable Protective Gap (PPG) to live work on a compact 550 kV steel lattice tower. The objective of the research was to provide experimental evidence which confirms the needed coordination of the PPG sparkover characteristics with the sparkover characteristics of the worksite on the compact tower during live work. Sparkover characteristics of the worksite are strongly affected by the presence of the worker, the live working tools, and damaged insulators.

Within the context of the consistent tangent update, this paper outlines a stress update algorithm for combined creep and plasticity. The algorithm is implicit, providing unconditional stability, and utilizes local Newton iteration to solve SCALAR forms of the coupled constitutive equations for the creep and plastic strain increments. The tangent for the local iteration is obtained accurately providing quadratic convergence at the Gauss point level. Quadratic convergence of the global iteration procedure is also maintained using an explicitly derived consistent tangent for combined plasticity and creep. Further, combination with an automatic time-stepping scheme provides an efficient, stable, accurate and robust computational algorithm.The algorithm has been implemented in the general purpose FE package LUSAS.'