Numerical Simulation of the Response of Concrete Structural Elements Containing a Self-Healing Agent

Abstract

Self-healing of a crack is a relatively novel technique allowing for the partial recovery of the initial mechanical characteristics of a structural element after some period of exploitation. By a widely accepted convention, self-healing is either autogenous or autonomous. The former is a mechanism inherent for cementitious composites (in particular—concrete), while the latter is an engineered process. Both autogenous and engineered healing have recently been the object of numerous studies. Despite the large amount of research work being carried out, the potential of this technique has not yet been fully realized. The article focuses on the modeling and the finite element simulation of the recovery of the initial material properties resulting from the sealing of cracks. The employed numerical procedure uses a constitutive relation for concrete based on the continuum damage mechanics. It captures both the strain-softening and the inverse process—the crack healing. Finite element simulations of benchmark cases illustrate the effect of self-healing. The numerically obtained constitutive relations for specimens with and without a healing agent are compared.

Self-Healing Mechanical Properties of Selected Roofing Felts

“…In the former context, interesting research is presented in [ 55 , 56 ], in which the authors try to predict the life-cycle of self-healed products. In [ 57 ], a numerical simulation of the response of concrete structural elements containing an SH agent is presented. In [ 58 ], the use of a neutral network is proposed to model the SH process.…”

Multiscale modeling of extrinsic self healing GFRP materials

“…The self-healing of materials has been extensively studied experimentally and most of the numerical investigations of such kind of materials focus on homogeneous behaviors. Many healing laws in the continuous damage healing mechanics (CDHM) framework have been proposed for different material types including asphalt mixes [4], for cementitious materials [5,6] and for polymer matrix composites [7]. Voyadjis and Kattan [8] proposed the modeling of anisotropic self-healing materials and superhealing.…”