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Computers and Structures 85 (2007) 1293–1303
www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruc
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for simulation of fracture processes
J.P.B. Leite a, V. Slowik b,*
, J. Apel c
co
a
Department of Architecture and Building Science, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8579, Japan
b
Civil Engineering Department, Leipzig University of Applied Sciences, PF 301166, 04251 Leipzig, Germany
c
Computing Center, Academy of Visual Arts, Wächterstraße 11, 04107 Leipzig, Germany
Abstract
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This paper describes mathematical modelling and computational tool for simulation of fracture processes of cementitious composites
at the mesoscopic level. The tool relies on highly realistic 3D- and 2D-representations of the heterogeneous internal structure of concrete
for understanding the micromechanics of aggregate–matrix interactions. The generation mechanism allows control of aggregate volume
content, shape and size distribution. The allocation procedure proved capable to produce numerical concrete with aggregate distributions
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comparable to real concrete. The continuum was discretised into lattices of linear elements, for structural analyses. Compression, direct
tension and wedge-splitting tests were simulated. Parametrical study was carried out to investigate effects of different material properties
and proportions in concrete admixtures.
2006 Civil-Comp Ltd. and Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Keywords: Material optimization; Cementitious composite; Mesolevel model; Fracture simulation; Micromechanics of concrete; Aggregate–matrix
interaction
1. Introduction neous, and therefore cannot be used for any type of mate-
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rial optimisation.
Recent advances in cementitious composite materials Comparably large differences of scale in the systems of
are particularly related with the mesolevel structure of concrete’s internal structure do not allow the modelling of
these materials. Performance enhancements have been such systems as one. Hence, different models may be charac-
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obtained by tailoring the material composition in terms terised by resolution ranges, which are usually determined
of components geometry and contents, as well as by by desired levels of detail and available computational
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improvements on interface bonding between matrix and power. As general classification, mechanical models for con-
aggregate or fibre [1,2]. Experimental analyses can, in some crete may be distinguished into three levels attempting to
cases, be used for qualitatively evaluating effects of compo- conform the scale to desired degrees of detailing of the mate-
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nent properties but hardly can allow quantitative optimiza- rial’s structure. At a macroscopic level, the material is con-
tion of the composite admixture. On the other hand, sidered as homogeneous. Corresponding models take no
phenomenological models used to describe the mechanical regard on the material composition. At the microscopic
behaviour of concrete assume the material to be homoge- level, the porous structure of the cement paste is modelled.
At the intermediary level, the mesoscopic level, the concrete
is regarded as a two-phase material, either as small aggre-
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 341 3076 6261; fax: +49 341 3076
gates surrounded by the hardened cement paste or as coarse
7045. aggregate particles dispersed in a matrix of mortar. Meso-
E-mail address: slowik@fbb.htwk-leipzig.de (V. Slowik). level models have proved to be suitable for describing at a
0045-7949/$ - see front matter 2006 Civil-Comp Ltd. and Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compstruc.2006.08.086
1294 J.P.B. Leite et al. / Computers and Structures 85 (2007) 1293–1303
good extent the complex fracture behaviour of the concrete, (a) The location of the aggregate particles should be ran-
as well as for investigating the influence of the concrete domly selected.
composition on the macroscopic properties [3–6]. However, (b) Shape and size of the particles should be randomly
resolution range and applicability of proposed mesolevel selected within given limits.
models may vary considerably from one to another. (c) The spatial aggregate distribution should be relatively
Mechanical mesolevel models of concrete may suffer uniform.
from limitations in producing realistic depictions of the (d) Given size distribution and aggregates content should
highly heterogeneous internal structure of the concrete. be exactly matched.
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The depicted concrete structure used in computational (e) The maximum aggregate content should be as high as
models, referred to as ‘‘numerical concrete’’, in some cases in the real concrete.
insufficiently resembles the real concrete material. Thus the
results of stress analysis methods may be highly questioned The first requirement implies in the usage of random
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due to the inability of fictitious concrete structures to cap- number generators. In fact, the most trivial way of placing
ture the physical reality. While crude depictions have been aggregate particles in the test volume or test area is to
capable of reproducing macro behavioural features, they obtain the location purely randomly. When a particle is
are unlikely to describe the effects of different material placed partially outside of the test volume or overlapping
properties of the concrete components, as well as effects previously allocated particles, the trial location is dismissed
of different admixtures, on the deformation and fracture and a new one is attempted. Although the simplicity of
behaviour. such a scheme is fairly attractive, the efficiency is very poor.
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A computational tool designed for simulation of frac- Practical computer random functions are in general linear
ture processes of concrete is presented in the following sec- congruential generators and therefore not free of sequential
tions. The concepts for mathematical modelling and correlation on successive calls. In the particular case of
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computational implementation are described. In the devel- three-dimensional spaces, the total number of planes in
opment of the model and in the present paper, special which triples of points could lie may be as low as the cube
attention has been given to a realistic representation of root of 32 768, or 32 and unlikely to be larger than the cube
the heterogeneous aggregate–matrix structure in 2D and root of 232, about 1600. This extremely pronounced dis-
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3D. With the generation algorithm described here aggre- creteness of the planes prevents the exploration of small
gate contents as high as in the real concrete may be fractions of the volume. Therefore, such mechanisms are
obtained. In this respect, the proposed model is more real- only capable to achieve comparably low aggregate con-
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istic than others proposed in the literature [5,6]. tents, and the approach is extremely redundant and time-
Simulations of concrete fracture under different loading consuming. In addition, the resulting mesolevel structure
cases were carried out and some results are presented. The is a very coarse idealisation, which in general does not
purpose of such simulations was to identify the influence of resemble the real concrete.
different mechanical and geometrical properties of the com- Vervuurt [8] proposed an improved mechanism, which
ponent materials onto the overall behaviour of the compos- simulates a process in which circular particles are dropped
ite material. into a mould. The horizontal position for a particle is ran-
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In the present paper, which is mainly focussing on the domly selected along the mould length. Thereafter the par-
generation algorithm for the concrete meso-structure only ticle is moved downwards until a specified minimum
few numerical results are presented. More results of analy- distance to particles previously placed is reached. In order
ses performed with the proposed model are reported in to attain more dense structures, this procedure may be
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another paper which addresses the material science aspects attempted several times for a same particle, at different hor-
of the model more in detail [7]. izontal positions, selecting the deepest position from all
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idealisations. Two-dimensional concrete models are easily rial, which they are intended to model, the ellipsoids may
obtained by slicing the three-dimensional model. The have to differ in size and roundness.
aggregate particles are designed as ellipsoids and by con- An ellipsoid is uniquely defined in the three-dimensional
trolling the ratio between their three middle-axes a variety space by specifying the lengths of its middle-axes, the coor-
of shapes may be obtained. The stochastic-heuristic algo- dinates of its centre point and the directions of its axes. The
rithm for allocating the aggregates, which has been embod- size can be limited by giving the mesh length of two qua-
ied in the generation mechanism, allows for aggregate dratic sieves, where the ellipsoid should be able to pass
contents compared to the ones in real concrete and also through the first but not through the second sieve. The
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for equivalent spatial distributions, see Fig. 1. In addition, specified aggregate volume for each sieve determines the
the generation mechanism successfully meets all other size distribution. The exact volumes for all sieves are
requirements outlined above. attained by adjusting the size of the last particles of each
Note that the algorithm for allocation of particles per- sieve. Different shapes may be obtained according to the
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forms some local heuristic search in the neighbourhood of prescribed roundness. By roundness of an ellipsoid, it is
the initial random position, using rotation and translation intended to express how much the shape differs from that
moves. In order to attain more uniform size distribution, of a sphere. The roundness is prescribed by specifying a
the shifts (translation moves) are performed in stepwise value or range for the ratio between the shortest and the
manner along heuristically determined directions, with step longest middle-axes length. Thus, an aggregate particle is
values proportional to the ellipsoid axes and step sizes con- generated in two steps:
trolled according to the aggregate scattering (low or high
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aggregate content). Rotations are simulated by random (i) The lengths of the three middle-axes are calculated
changes in the Eulerian angles. In the real process of con- randomly in accordance with the required size and
crete placing and compacting, the smaller particles are some- roundness of the particle.
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how adjusted by the settlement of the larger particles. The (ii) The centre-point coordinates and axis directions are
proposed mechanism simulates smaller particles hitting oth- fixed randomly.
ers and bouncing back until they have reached their final
position. This yields a more realistic structure than a purely 2.1.1. Generation of ellipsoids of given size and shape
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random procedure. In addition, the shifts allow the alloca- The two shortest middle-axes of the ellipsoid E3D may
tion of the ellipsoid centres in any position of the three- be determined by the procedure as follows. When cutting
dimensional space instead of in a limited number of planes. the ellipsoid E3D by the plane containing its centre point
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The consideration of fibre reinforcement was also imple- and being perpendicular to the third and longest axis, an
mented. However, since the fibres are allocated directly ellipse E2D is obtained whose middle-axes are the same as
into the mesh, after the concrete structure is generated, dif- the two shortest ones of the ellipsoid. The requirement that
ferent approaches to allocate fibres in 2D and 3D, see E3D passes through a quadratic sieve of mesh size m implies
Fig. 1, are used. that E2D fits in a square of edge length m. Let sx and sy
denote the length of the middle-axes
pffiffiffi of E2D. Thepdiagonal
ffiffiffi
2.1. Generation of aggregate particles of the square
pffiffiffi is of length 2m hence, sx 6 1=2 2m and
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Fig. 1. 3D-model specimens of plain concrete (left frame) and fibre reinforced concrete (right frame).
1296 J.P.B. Leite et al. / Computers and Structures 85 (2007) 1293–1303
for the maximal value which sy may take in order the ellipse x0 ¼ Aðx cÞ and x ¼ AT x0 þ c; ð5Þ
fits in the square. In case of maximal sy, the centres of the T
where c = (cx, cy, cz) are the centre-point coordinates and
square and the ellipse coincide and the middle-axes of
A is the rotation matrix in terms of the three rotation
the ellipse have the same directions as the diagonals of
angles /x, /y, /z, considering the rotations in clockwise
the square. Considering then the square and ellipsoid in a
and opposite order. Note, an ellipsoid is mathematically
coordinate system, which has the common centre as origin
determined in the three-dimensional space by the nine
and the diagonals of the square as coordinate axes, the
values cx, cy, cz, sx, sy, sz, /x, /y and /z. However, the fre-
equation of the ellipse takes the form
quently used entries aij of the rotation matrix A were added
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x2 y 2 to the computational representation of the ellipsoid to
þ 1 ¼ 0: ð1Þ
s2x s2y speed up the computations.
The mathematical representation of the ellipsoid surface
Subsequently,
pffiffiffi applying
pffiffiffi the affine transformation x ! in the global coordinate system, derived from the general
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1=2 2mx, y ! 1=2 2my, which maps the vertices of the equation of a quadric surface, is given as follows:
square to the points (1, 0), (0, 1), (1, 0), (0, 1) and the
ellipse satisfies the equation Ax;x x2 þ Ay;y y 2 þ Az;z z2 þ Ax;y xy þ Ay;z yz þ Ax;z xz
m2 x2 m2 y 2 þ Bx x þ By y þ Bz z þ C ¼ 0 ð6Þ
þ 2 1¼0 ð2Þ
2s2x 2sy
The coefficients A, B and C of the surface in the global
with respect to the new coordinate system. Thereafter,
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coordinate system are obtained by substituting
applying appropriate transformations and boundary con-
ditions, the necessary and sufficient condition for the ellipse x0 ¼ a11 x þ a12 y þ a13 z a11 cx a12 cy a13 cz
being entirely contained in the square may be stated as
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y 0 ¼ a21 x þ a22 y þ a23 z a21 cx a22 cy a23 cz ð7Þ
follows
0
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi z ¼ a31 x þ a32 y þ a33 z a31 cx a32 cy a33 cz
1 pffiffiffi m2
0 < sx < 2m and 0 < sy 6 s2x : ð3Þ
2 2 into the equation of the ellipsoid, referred to the private
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Moreover, in order to assure that the ellipsoid does not coordinate system, given by
pass through a second sieve of mesh size n < m, the follow-
ing condition must also be imposed: x02 y 02 z02
þ 2 þ 2 1 ¼ 0: ð8Þ
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rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi s2x sy sz
1 pffiffiffi n2
sx P 2n or sy > s2x : ð4Þ
2 2
2.2. Allocation of the aggregate particles
Hence, assuming the sx 6 sy 6 sz, the lengths of the three
middles-axes can be computed in the following procedure: The allocation of the particles consists in finding suitable
values for the centre-point coordinates as well as for the
r's
(i) Compute a random value for r, the ratio sx/sz (short- rotation angles. The word ‘‘suitable’’ here refers to three
est and longest middle-axes), with 0 < r0 6 r 6 r1 6 1, important requirements, i.e. the ellipsoids should not over-
where r0 and r1 are the given lower and upper bounds lap each other, should be entirely inside the specimen and
for the ratio r. fairly uniform distributed. In addition, efficient allocation
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in Fig. 2 starts by selecting a trial or candidate location for sequential shifts in a same direction until the overlapping
a certain particle (particle P15). The trial location is is removed.
obtained by determining random values for the centre- The standard direction for the initial sequence of shifts
point coordinates and the rotation angles for the axes. is along the line connecting the centre points of the two
Independent random number generators have to be used overlapping particles. Exception is made for the specific
for the directions x, y and z, in order to allow the incidence case, in which the trial particle overlaps an existent one
of similar or identical values for the angles or coordinates after being shifted into the inside of the specimen. In such
on the different directions. In addition, a random number a case, the standard direction would likely to send the par-
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must not be used to simultaneously perform different tasks ticle once again partially outside. The direction of the
or a uniform distribution of random values can no longer shifts in this case is given by a line B, which is perpendic-
be assured. The rotation angles /x, /y and /z are assigned ular to and passes through the middle of line A, which
with random values lying in the interval [0, 2p], and the cen- connects the centre points of the current trial particle
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tre-point coordinates are computed as random values (P17) and the overlapped particle (P1). Yet line B is ori-
bounded by internal planes parallel to the specimen sur- ented by a random angle around line A. After the overlap-
face. The planes may be systematically adjusted along the ping is removed, the boundary and overlapping checks are
process in order to prevent that bulky amounts of aggre- performed again to assure that the trial particle in the new
gate are allocated near to the specimen surface. attempted position remains inside of the specimen and
Once a trial location is selected, it undergoes firstly a does not overlap any other previously allocated particle.
boundary checking routine to determine if the particle is In such a case, the new attempted location is accepted
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entirely inside of the specimen and thereafter another rou- (particle P17).
tine to determine if the ellipsoid being allocated would not In the case that a particle, in a random trial location, is
overlap any particle previously allocated. In such a case, entirely contained in the specimen but overlaps an existing
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the trial location is accepted (particle P15). particle, the mechanism attempts to remove the overlapping
Otherwise, if the trial location sets the particle partially by performing a maximum of ten spins according to certain
outside of the specimen, the mechanism forces the particle probability of success (ps). A spin consists of a random rota-
to the nearest location inside by horizontal and/or vertical tion around each of the three axes, i.e. defining three new
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shifts of the centre point. Then, if the trial particle would random values for the rotation angles. The control value
not overlap other one previously allocated, the new loca- cs, to determine whether spins are to be carried out or not,
tion is adopted (particle P16). However, if the particle over- may be specified in advance or defined automatically during
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laps an existing particle, the mechanism attempts each trial at random. Thus a spin is only performed if
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the specimen, the new location is accepted (particle P18). If behaviour of the discrete elements. In addition, these mod-
not, the mechanism performs sequential shifts in the stan- els may differ also in the consideration of the loading con-
dard direction, until the overlapping is removed. Thereafter, dition (tension or compression). Consequently, all of these
if the trial particle remains entirely inside of the specimen models have been reported fairly successful in their specific
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and does not overlap any other existing one, the location is purposes, but hardly efficient in describing the material
accepted (particle P19). behaviour in situations other than the ones for which they
In case the shifts along the standard direction result in have been tailored. In the particular case of cementitious
overlapping of another particle, a second and third direc- composites, this suggests that general-purpose tools may
tion are subsequently attempted. If, however, all the men- require a certain level of flexibility to accommodate the
tioned attempts fail to find a valid location, a new trial effects caused by differences in the material compositions.
location is selected at random. Thus, the sequence to The model presented here combines many of the suc-
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remove overlapping may be summarised as follows: cessful features of existing models and some supplementary
new features. The corresponding simulation software
(i) Perform spin with a certain probability. developed in this study allows the selection of different soft-
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(ii) Perform sequential shifts in the standard direction ening functions, mechanical properties and probabilistic
(P20) and/or secondary direction (P21/P17). scattering independently for each material component. It
(iii) Perform sequential shifts in a random direction (trial also allows a selection among four different framework
P22). type elements: planar truss (4 degrees of freedom), planar
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(iv) Select new trial position (P22). frame (6 d.o.f.), space truss (6 d.o.f.) and space frame (12
• After every movement check boundaries and if d.o.f.) elements. The meshes are initially generated as per-
overlapping was removed. fect lattices. Subsequently, small nodal perturbations may
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• After overlapping being removed check boundaries be imposed in order to produce irregular meshes. The ini-
and overlapping with other existent particles. tial 2D (square) grid consists of four nodes interconnected
by four lateral elements and two diagonals, while the 3D
Note that since a particle (P23) lying partially outside of (cubic) grid consists of eight nodes interconnected by 12
the specimen is shifted into the interior of the specimen, edge elements, 12 diagonals on faces and four internal diag-
attempts to set the centre point at any position along the onals. Cross-sectional areas of the different classes of
line C would produce an acceptable location. However, elements (edge, diagonals, etc.) are automatically set in a
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the probability of a particle being placed next to the surface manner that the stiffness of the mesh matches the stiffness
would be quite high. In order to overcome such a draw- of the continuum (assuming same elastic modulus E for
back, the internal planes are used to limit the space for allo- all mesh elements of a certain material component). Yet,
cation of the centre points near the surface. Since this effect the implemented software allows for manual assignment
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is only significant for the allocation of the large particles, of different values for each class of elements.
the planes are gradually moved towards the surface from The material types for the line elements are assigned by
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sieve to sieve. The internal planes are used as boundary projecting the lattice onto the aggregate-matrix structure,
limits only for the centre points and a covering layer is used see Fig. 3, and detecting whether both element nodes lie
to confine the particles inside of the specimen. inside of the same aggregate (aggregate material) or both
Au
The investigation of intersection of ellipsoids by only element nodes lie in the matrix and the element does not
numerical methods is very time consuming and would intersect any aggregate (matrix material). Otherwise, the
make the generation of a realistic aggregate-mortar struc- element is considered as bond interface between the two
ture almost untractable. However, the intersection problem other materials (darkest regions in Fig. 3). In the case of
can be transformed using so-called Gröbner bases and perfect bonding, the material stiffness of each bond inter-
Sturm sequences into a much simpler form where the face element is assigned proportionally to the amount of
numerical solution becomes very fast and does not require each of the two materials in the element. In case of weak
neither recursions nor iterations. Detailed formulation and bonding, the interface element is considered as a third
solution for investigation of overlapping of aggregates and and independent material.
also violation of the specimen boundaries is presented in a A common approach, which has been employed by var-
research report [10]. ious researchers [4,5], to simulate the material behaviour
J.P.B. Leite et al. / Computers and Structures 85 (2007) 1293–1303 1299
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Fig. 3. Discretised 2D specimens: matrix–interface–aggregate structure for tension/compression simulations (left frame); fibre reinforced concrete
structure for simulations of wedge-splitting tests (right frame).
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and overall fracture process is the employment of a failure simulation. For computational convenience, the fibres were
criterion for determining the collapse of discrete elements, placed only in the lower half of the specimen. In Fig. 4, the
after which the elements are removed. Thus after an initial aggregate structure and mesh elements were made invisible,
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linear response, a nonlinear behaviour is obtained as result to show the arrangement of the fibres in a 3D model. For
of the successive failure of the elastic-brittle discrete ele- the fibre elements, a softening function was derived on the
ments. This approach seems apparently simple but also basis of a bond-slip relation.
dependent on the size of the discrete elements. Further-
more, a comparably brittle and rather unrealistic post-
peak response in obtained. In this work, an alternative
approach, which includes a tensile softening branch in
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Fig. 5. Typical crack pattern and damage condition obtained in 2D-simulations with cubic specimens under direct tensile loading.
4. Simulations and discussion and shear cracks, see Fig. 6. When compared with experi-
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mental findings, see Fig. 6, lower left frame, the numeri-
In this section, some simulation results are presented in cally obtained crack patterns appear to be realistic.
order to demonstrate the applicability of the model. A Fig. 7 compares the fracture behaviour in wedge-split-
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more detailed discussion of results is given in [7]. ting simulations with and without fibres. In the left frame,
Before attempting to use the model to investigate the corresponding to a concrete specimen without fibres, the
influence of mechanical component properties on the frac- elements that have undergone softening (dark shade, blue
ture behaviour, it was necessary to ensure that the model colour), due to the rising of localized stresses, perfectly
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describes faithfully the overall response of the composite describe the fracture process zone as reported in experi-
material. Therefore, in an initial stage, large series of sim- mental observations. The final cracking surface starts
ulations with specimens of various types under different immediately below the notch and runs down along the
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loading conditions were carried out to calibrate and vali- aggregate–matrix interfaces. Fig. 7, at the right, shows a
date the model. specimen with identical concrete structure of the one in
Fig. 5 (left) shows typical crack pattern and damage the left frame but containing steel fibres. Note that, in such
state of the discrete elements obtained in the simulations a case redistribution of stresses occurred resulting in
of direct tensile tests. A single crack surface develops along changes in the configuration of the fracture process zone
the aggregate–matrix interfaces cutting the specimen in two and in the cracking path.
pieces. The image on the right shows the damage state of The stress–displacement curves recorded during the sim-
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the discrete elements, just before the collapse. The light ulations of steel fibre reinforced concrete (SFRC) and plain
shade (green colour)1 denotes elements that never crossed concrete specimens under direct tension are presented in
the elastic limit, i.e. never entered in softening, while the Fig. 8. In the SFRC curves, the maximum load is only
dark shade (red colour) designates those elements which slightly influenced by the fibres whereas the post-peak
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have collapsed. In medium shade (blue colour), are the ele- strength increases notably with the fibre content, yielding
ments that have undergone softening at a certain stage (i.e. more ductile fracture as consequence of crack deflections
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lost some stiffness) and therefore their status is displayed as and branching revealed in the cracking patterns of the sim-
partially damaged. Comparing the two frames of Fig. 5, it ulations, see Fig. 9. Results agree with experimental find-
may be observed that microcracks have initiated in various ings but the 2D model is limited to low aggregate content
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regions of the specimen, however the deformation was par- specimens or consideration of coarse particles only.
tially or totally recovered in most of these regions as the Increasing of aggregate or fibre contents produces jamming
crack surface develops. Such results are in perfect agree- of fibres in localized areas and temporarily increases in
ment with experimental observations. strength. Such effects may be at certain extent observed
In simulations of uniaxial compression of cubic speci- also in experimental testing, but using higher aggregate
mens, the typical cracking pattern may be described as tor- and fibre contents than the ones employed in these simula-
tuous ‘‘parallel’’ cracks along the loading direction and in tions. This discrepancy may in part be result of inaccura-
some cases as diagonal shear cracks or as a mix of parallel cies in simplifications of 2D representations of fibres. The
3D models do not present these problems, since the fibres
are allocated in their real positions. In fact, the 3D simula-
1
For references to colors in figures, the reader is referred to the web tion may present more uniform distribution and allow
version of this article. higher fibre contents than the ones observed in practice,
J.P.B. Leite et al. / Computers and Structures 85 (2007) 1293–1303 1301
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Fig. 6. Typical crack patterns and damage condition of cubic specimens under uniaxial compression obtained in 2D-simulations and in experimental
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testing.
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Fig. 7. Comparison of damage processes in wedge-splitting simulations of specimens with identical concrete structure, with (right frame) and without (left
frame) fibre reinforcement.
since distribution and content are interrelated with the the fracture behaviour [7,10]. In addition, the performance
workability of the fresh concrete. of the generation mechanism was accessed in terms of
Extensive parametric studies over large series of simula- aggregate distribution, aggregate content and computa-
tions have been carried out to investigate the influence of tional time for different aggregate size and shape [10]. How-
the material composition, as well as influences of geometri- ever, a comprehensive report of such results is beyond the
cal and mechanical properties of aggregates and fibres on scope of this paper.
1302 J.P.B. Leite et al. / Computers and Structures 85 (2007) 1293–1303
4.0
0 vol.-%
3.5 0.50 vol.-%
2.00 vol.-%
Stress [MPa]
2.5
2.0
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1.5
1.0
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0.5
0.0
0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10 0.12
Displacement [mm]
Fig. 8. Stress-displacement curves of direct tension simulations with and without fibres.
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Fig. 9. Comparison of crack patterns with (right frame) and without (left frame) fibre reinforcement, obtained from direct tension simulations of
specimens with identical concrete structure.
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independent mechanical properties of different material The proposed generation mechanism for the concrete
components into the global mechanical properties of the structure is capable to obtain dense packing of particles
composite material. The model was proved efficient to and uniform distributions in relatively short computational
reproduce the trends in mechanical properties and overall time. The resulting concrete structure provides sufficient
tensile and compressive fracture behaviours in good agree- detail to allow implementation of most significant factors
ment with experimental observations. Experimental studies affecting the fracture behaviour. The mechanism makes
can only statistically estimate such effects through analyses the proposed computational model suitable for both 3D
of samples, since two or more specimens with identical and 2D analyses, with the advantage of dealing with a
structure cannot repeat in experimental tests. In addition, unique mesoscopic concrete structure. The obtained
in experimental tests it is hardly possible to investigate more realistic concrete structure has allowed substantial
influence of changes in properties of independent compo- enhancement in simulations of concrete under compression
nents, since changes in one component result usually in and reflects better understanding of the material behaviour.
J.P.B. Leite et al. / Computers and Structures 85 (2007) 1293–1303 1303
Although 3D idealisations and analyses require more Week 2000, international conference on advanced materials, their
sophisticated setting and higher computational effort, they processing and application, Munich, Germany, 2000.
[4] van Mier JGM, Schlangen E, Vervuurt A. Tensile cracking in
are clearly more accurate and naturally suitable for practical concrete and sandstone: part 2 – effect of boundary rotations. Matér
applications. The 2D analyses suffer from a number of limi- Construct 1996;29:87–96.
tations and in general escalate the problems. On the other [5] van Mier JGM, van Vliet MRA, Wang TK. Fracture mechanisms in
hand, they are more efficient to spot out the inconsistencies, particle composites: statistical aspects in lattice type analysis. Mech
and therefore particularly useful for model development. Mater 2002;34:705–24.
[6] Karihaloo BL, Shao PF, Xiao QZ. Lattice modelling of the failure of
particle composites. Eng Fract Mech 2003;70:2385–406.
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References [7] Leite JPB, Slowik V, Mihashi H. Computer simulation of fracture
processes of concrete using mesolevel models of lattice structures.
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