The unilateral behaviour of damaged concrete

✍ Scribed by J. Mazars; Y. Berthaud; S. Ramtani

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1990
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 485 KB
• Volume: 35
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0013-7944
• DOI: 10.1016/0013-7944(90)90145-7

✦ Synopsis

This paper addresses the effect of microcracking of concrete on its elastic response under cyclic loading. From the experimental point of view, the unilateral behaviour of damaged concrete is shown to be related to the change of the sign of the load. The experimental results of two particular tests (one uniaxial and the second multiaxial) are analysed here. In the first, a compressive load was applied on the specimen after development of diffused tensile damage. We pointed out the influence of previously-created microcracks on the response of damaged concrete. In the second test, a concrete beam was submitted to a low cycle fatigue test in order to analyse the global stiffness evolution. From the modelling point of view, we consider that a scalar damage variable must be decomposed into two terms related to a change of the sign of the stress tensor. The proposed evolution law and threshold are briefly discussed. Numerical results obtained with this model are given for the beam tests.