The modified mesoscopic stochastic fracture model incorporating the random field of Young's modulus for the uniaxial constitutive law of concrete

Abstract

Concrete is a multi-phase composite material that exhibits nonlinear and random characteristics in various contexts. The mesoscopic stochastic fracture model (MSFM) was developed to capture the constitutive behaviors of concrete. However, it is still not accurate enough to quantify the randomness of stress-strain curves in the ascending phase, and the variability of the strength might be considerably underestimated. In this paper, to remedy the above deficiencies, two alternative modifications to the MSFM are proposed. In the modified models, in addition to the random field of mesoscale fracture strain, Young's modulus of meso-springs is also quantified by a single random variable or a random field, respectively. The mathematical expressions for the mean and standard deviation of the uni-axial compressive stress-strain curves of concrete in the modified models are derived. Furthermore, based on the data from tested complete compressive stress-strain relationships of concrete with different strength grades, the parameters in the two modified MSFMs are identified by combining the genetic algorithm and a dimension-reduction algorithm. The results show that the accuracy of the modified models involving the randomness from both the mesoscale fracture strain and the mesoscale Young's modulus is greatly improved compared to the existing MSFM in capturing both the variability of concrete strength and the standard deviation in the ascending phase of the stress-strain relationship of concrete.