Meso-Scale Simulation of Concrete Uniaxial Behavior Based on Numerical Modeling of CT Images

Sun, Haokai; Gao, Yang; Zheng, Xinyu; Chen, Yibo; Jiang, Zhen; Zhang, Zeyao

doi:10.3390/ma12203403

Cited by 21 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Mesh generation plays an important role in the mesoscale simulation. Different techniques to construct 2D and 3D mesoscale meshes can be found in the literature [6,7,[9][10][11][12][13]26]. We did not have access to tools, such as X-ray computed tomography, which are able to recreate exactly the laboratory specimen in a computational environment.…”

Section: Mesh Generationmentioning

confidence: 99%

3D Mesoscale Finite Element Modelling of Concrete under Uniaxial Loadings

et al. 2020

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Concrete exhibits a complex mechanical behavior, especially when approaching failure. Its behavior is governed by the interaction of the heterogeneous structures of the material at the first level of observation below the homogeneous continuum, i.e., at the mesoscale. Concrete is assumed to be a three-phase composite of coarse aggregates, mortar, and the interfacial transitional zone (ITZ) between them. Finite element modeling on a mesoscale requires appropriate meshes that discretize the three concrete components. As the weakest link in concrete, ITZ plays an important role. However, meshing ITZ is a challenging issue, due to its very reduced thickness. Representing ITZ with solid elements of such reduced size would produce very expensive finite element meshes. An alternative is to represent ITZ as zero-thickness interface elements. This work adopts interface elements for ITZ. Damage plasticity model is adopted to describe the softening behavior of mortar in compression, while cohesive fractures describe the cracking process. Numerical experiments are presented. First example deals with the estimation of concrete Young’s modulus. Experimental tests were performed to support the numerical test. A second experiment simulates a uniaxial compression test and last experiment simulates a uniaxial tensile test, where results are compared to data from the literature.

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Section: Mesh Generationmentioning

confidence: 99%

3D Mesoscale Finite Element Modelling of Concrete under Uniaxial Loadings

et al. 2020

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“…Computational mesoscale models explicitly resolve the heterogeneity of the material and provide deeper insight into the role of the heterogeneity on the material’s behaviour especially in processes that are governed by localised phenomena, such as microcracking and failure processes. Recently, due to the advancement in computational resources and X-ray computed tomography (CT), models, in which mesostructures directly incorporated as voxel data from CT scans, have been proposed and used for numerical meso-scale simulations [ 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Computational Generation of Virtual Concrete Mesostructures

Holla

Timothy

et al. 2021

Materials

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Concrete is a heterogeneous material with a disordered material morphology that strongly governs the behaviour of the material. In this contribution, we present a computational tool called the Concrete Mesostructure Generator (CMG) for the generation of ultra-realistic virtual concrete morphologies for mesoscale and multiscale computational modelling and the simulation of concrete. Given an aggregate size distribution, realistic generic concrete aggregates are generated by a sequential reduction of a cuboid to generate a polyhedron with multiple faces. Thereafter, concave depressions are introduced in the polyhedron using Gaussian surfaces. The generated aggregates are assembled into the mesostructure using a hierarchic random sequential adsorption algorithm. The virtual mesostructures are first calibrated using laboratory measurements of aggregate distributions. The model is validated by comparing the elastic properties obtained from laboratory testing of concrete specimens with the elastic properties obtained using computational homogenisation of virtual concrete mesostructures. Finally, a 3D-convolutional neural network is trained to directly generate elastic properties from voxel data.

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“…Wang et al [ 23 ] studied the effects of aggregate shape, aggregate volume fraction and porosity on tensile strength on the basis of elliptic and polygon aggregate models. Sun [ 24 ] using X-ray computer tomography (CT) as an effective method of aggregate boundary identification, as well as the equivalent random polygon aggregates of modeling discrete element method (DEM), set up three different porosity of the concrete mesoscopic model and carried out numerical experiments of uniaxial compression, the results show that the crack, under the action of axial force, selectively extends, the minimum principal stress is normally distributed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Numerical Study of Concrete Dynamic Splitting Based on 3D Realistic Aggregate Mesoscopic Model

Chen

Yang

et al. 2021

Materials

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In mesoscopic scale, concrete is regarded as a heterogeneous three-phase material composed of mortar, aggregate and interfacial transition zone (ITZ). The effect of mesoscopic structure on the mechanical behaviors of concrete should be paid more attention. The fractal characteristics of aggregate were calculated, then the geometric models of aggregate were reconstructed by using fractal Brownian motion. Based on the random distribution of aggregates, the concrete mesoscopic structure model was established. And the numerical model was generated by using grid mapping technology. The dynamic compression experiments of concrete under Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) loading verify the reliability and validity of the mesoscopic structural model and the parameters of the constitutive model. Based on these, a numerical study of concrete under dynamic splitting is carried out. By changing the parameters of the constitutive model, the effects of tensile strengths of aggregate, mortar and ITZ on the dynamic tensile strength of concrete are discussed. The results show that the dynamic failure of specimen usually occurs at the interfacial transition zone, then extends to the mortar, and the aggregates rarely fail. However, the increase of strain rate intensifies this process. When the strain rate increases from 72.93 s−1 to 186.51 s−1, a large number of aggregate elements are deleted due to reaching the failure threshold. The variation of tensile strengths of each phase component have the same effect on the dynamic tensile strength and energy of concrete. The dynamic tensile strength and energy of concrete are most affected by the tensile strength of mortar, following by the ITZ, but the tensile strength of aggregate has almost no effect.

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Meso-Scale Simulation of Concrete Uniaxial Behavior Based on Numerical Modeling of CT Images

Cited by 21 publications

References 35 publications

3D Mesoscale Finite Element Modelling of Concrete under Uniaxial Loadings

3D Mesoscale Finite Element Modelling of Concrete under Uniaxial Loadings

Computational Generation of Virtual Concrete Mesostructures

Numerical Study of Concrete Dynamic Splitting Based on 3D Realistic Aggregate Mesoscopic Model

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