MULTISCALE MODELING OF STRAIN-HARDENING CEMENTITIOUS COMPOSITES BASED ON BEAM THEORY

The behavior of Strain-Hardening Cementitious Composites (SHCC) is often studied at different scales, from single fiber to single crack and further to the composite material. Establishing a model that can link SHCC behavior at different scales is crucial for the design of SHCC through the proper selection or tuning of properties at the microscale. In this paper, the entire scaling up modeling process for PE-SHCC is presented. Different from existing models that treat the fibers as strings, the fundamental of the model in this study is to treat the fibers as beams so their bending stiffness is taken into account. To verify the model directly, experiments were conducted at various scales. Through the comparison among the 'string' model, the 'beam' model and experimental results, the 'beam' model was found to give a better prediction for PE-SHCC material.