Engineering

Materials science

Monotonic function

Softening

Tensile strain

Ultimate tensile strength

Tensile testing

Aggregate (composite)

Constitutive equation

Finite element method

Mathematics

Cracking

Mathematical analysis

Composite material

Fiber

Structural engineering

Tension (geology)

Cement and Concrete Composites

To establish the tensile constitutive model of ultra-high performance concrete containing coarse aggregate (CA-UHPC), monotonic and cyclic uniaxial tensile tests for CA-UHPC with fiber volume fractions of 2.5% and 2.0% were conducted. Test results showed that CA-UHPC exhibits approximately linear stress-strain relation up to the tensile strength, and tensile softening response composed of the smeared- and localized-cracking stages, regardless of the tested fiber contents. Based on the monotonic test data, the tensile stress-crack opening model of CA-UHPC was established, and the model was further simplified into tri-linear relation. Based on the cyclic test results, tensile damage evolution laws according to the strain equivalence principle and the energy equivalence principle were developed, respectively. Finally, the proposed tensile constitutive model and the calibrated tensile damage evolution laws were demonstrated to effectively predict the mechanical response of CA-UHPC members under both monotonic tension and cyclic tension through numerical simulations.

Uniaxial tensile response and tensile constitutive model of ultra-high performance concrete containing coarse aggregate (CA-UHPC)