Meso-Scale Approach for Prediction of Mechanical Property and Degradation of Concrete

This paper presents a new approach with meso scale structure models to express mechanical property, such as stress - strain relationships, of concrete. This approach is successful to represent both uniaxial tension and uniaxial compression stress - strain relationship, which is in macro scale. The meso scale approach is also applied to predict degraded mechanical properties of frost-damaged concrete. The degradation of mechanical properties with frost-damaged concrete was carefully observed. Strength and stiffness in both tension and compression decrease with freezing and thawing cycles (FTC), while stress-free crack opening in tension softening increases. First attempt shows that the numerical simulation can express the experimentally observed degradation by introducing changes in the meso scale structure in concrete, which are assumed based on observed damages in the concrete subjected to FTC. At the end applicability of the meso scale approach to prediction of the degradation by combined effects of salt attack and FTC is discussed. It is shown that clarification of effects of frost damage in concrete on corrosion progress and on crack development in the damaged cover concrete due to corrosion is one of the issues for which the meso scale approach is useful.