This research especially helps for the design of concrete structures which has to last at least for 100 years such as bridges. The research aims to give a better prediction of long-term deformations of concrete and improve the structure design based on these predictions. The accurate prediction helps in capturing the long-term deformation of concrete which is required for long-term failure analysis of such structures. Most of the current formulas to determine concrete's creep and shrinkage is outdated and calibrated based on erroneous data. This also requires developing models to predict fracture behavior of the concrete. Quasibrittle materials act differently from brittle and ductile material and usually require elegant computational schemes to model their behavior. A wide range of materials such as fiber composites, tough ceramics, many rocks, stiff soils, sea ice, wood, carton, rigid foams, etc., develop a damage zone in front of the crack tip and they categorize as quasibrittle material. The material response is characterized by softening in the load-displacement curve and also size effect in maximum nominal strength. It is well known that the stress response of such material does not follow the classical elastic and plastic analysis. The deviation from such response is called size effect. The big size structures such as bridges are more prone to size effect as the real-size structure is far from scale which material is tested in the laboratory. The research in the field includes developing sophisticated constitutive models using Finite Element method to simulate, predict the behavior of the material and to address the size effect in real-size structures.

Creator

• Rasoolinejad, Mohammad

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-0vde-xw28

Subject

• Civil engineering

Language

• en

Alternate Identifier

• etdadmin_upload_685109
• http://dissertations.umi.com/northwestern:14804

Date created

• 2019-01-01

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright