Mesoscopic modelling of UHPCC material under dynamic tensile loadings

Abstract

This paper presents a new 3D mesoscopic model of ultra-high performance cement-based composite (UHPCC) to investigate its dynamic tensile behavior. In this model, the UHPCC is regarded as a two-phase material composed of cementitious matrix and randomly distributed fibers. The model is established using the commercial software LS-DYNA and involves generating the randomly distributed fiber elements with considerations of diameter, length, orientation and volume fraction, and then fully constraining them with the matrix. In particular, to capture the slipping effect between fibers and matrix that has a strong influence on the dynamic tensile behavior, the fibers are modelled by a fictitious material represented by the load-slip relation. The strain-rate effect of slipping force neglected in most of previous studies is considered by calibrating constitutive parameters of the fictitious material under different strain-rates based on the single fiber pullout tests. Finally, the 3D mesoscopic model is validated against three sets of tension-dominated experiments covered a wide range of loading intensity. Numerical predictions demonstrate that strain-rate effect of slipping force must be considered, and the neglect of it may lead to a great underestimation of the dynamic tensile strength of UHPCC material and would unavoidably underestimate the blast resistance of UHPCC components.

Keywords

• UHPCC
• Dynamic tensile behavior
• Mesoscopic model
• Strain-rate effect
• Impact and blast loadings