Multiscale Modeling of Fracture Processes in Cementitious Materials

Concrete is a composite construction material, which is composed primarily of coarse aggregates, sands and cement paste. The fracture processes in concrete are complicated, because of the multiscale and multiphase nature of the material. In the past decades, comprehensive effort has been put to study the cracks evolution in concrete, both...

Experimentally validated multi-scale fracture modelling scheme of cementitious materials

Cementitious materials are heterogeneous on mutliple length scales, from nanometres to metres. Consequently, their macroscopic mechanical properties are affected by material structures at all length scales. In pursuit of fundamental understanding the relationship between their multiscale heterogeneous material structure and mechanical properties...

Cement paste degradation under external sulfate attack: An experimental and numerical research

Chemical degradation of cementitious materials is a serious threat to the durability and performance of concrete structures. External sulfate attack is one of the situations that may cause gradual but severe damage. Sulfate ions present in seawater, rivers, groundwater and industrial effluent can penetrate into the hardened concrete, and react...

Incorporating elastic and creep deformations in modelling the three-dimensional autogenous shrinkage of cement paste

A structure-based modelling framework was established to simulate the three-dimensional autogenous shrinkage of cement paste. A cement hydration model, HYMOSTRUC3D-E, was used to obtain the microstructures and ionic concentrations of the cement paste. A lattice fracture model based on the effective stress and effective modulus was used to...

Lattice Fracture Model for Concrete Fracture Revisited: Calibration and Validation

The lattice fracture model is a discrete model that can simulate the fracture process of cementitious materials. In this work, the Delft lattice fracture model is reviewed and utilized for fracture analysis. First, a systematic calibration procedure that relies on the combination of two uniaxial tensile tests is proposed to determine the input...