Meso-scale studies in fracture of concrete: A numerical simulation

The fracture behaviour of concrete is complex due to highly heterogeneous nature of the material. The heterogeneity of concrete manifests itself at various scales. At mesoscale, the presence of aggregates influences the strength of concrete by developing a zone of weakness in the form of aggregate-matrix interface. These lead to an increased distributed micro-cracking and enhances the energy absorption capacity of the material. The energy absorption capacity of structure is dependent not only on material properties but also on structural geometry and loading conditions. The present work attempts to identify the material and structural parameters that influence the overall behaviour, by using discrete numerical modelling of the material at mesoscale. Lattice modelling, a technique to model the heterogeneity using lattice elements is used to study the fracture behaviour of the material. Effect of aggregate volume fraction, specimen thickness and depth on the global behaviour is studied. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.