During the last decades durability issues gained more interest and the necessity of reliable and suitable models for the prediction of concrete behaviour on time has grown. One of the most severe deterioration processes that may affect concrete structures is caused by freezing-and-thawing cycles. The causes and mechanisms of frost damaging process have been deeply studied during the last decades and different theories have been developed to describe the physical process of damaging due to frost action. Nevertheless very little attention has been given to the effect of frost attack on the behaviour of reinforced concrete (R/C) structures and on the material characteristics and bond properties of concrete. Recent studies showed that frost action leads to a reduction of compressive and tensile strength, an increasing of peak strain and fracture energy and a reduction of bond strength. In the present work an innovative formulation recently proposed by the authors within the framework of coupled environmental-mechanical damage approach is reorganized and further enhanced considering additional experimental tests in order to be more general. Furthermore the proposed model is used as a predictive tool to evaluate load carrying capacity of some frost damaged beams showing the robustness and efficacy of the numerical procedure in reproducing the main experimental evidenced of structural behaviour of R/C affected by action of freeze-and-thawing cycles (FTC).
Structural analysis of frost damaged constructions by means of a coupled environmental-mechanical damage model
BERTO, LUISA;SAETTA, ANNA;TALLEDO, DIEGO ALEJANDRO;
2014-01-01
Abstract
During the last decades durability issues gained more interest and the necessity of reliable and suitable models for the prediction of concrete behaviour on time has grown. One of the most severe deterioration processes that may affect concrete structures is caused by freezing-and-thawing cycles. The causes and mechanisms of frost damaging process have been deeply studied during the last decades and different theories have been developed to describe the physical process of damaging due to frost action. Nevertheless very little attention has been given to the effect of frost attack on the behaviour of reinforced concrete (R/C) structures and on the material characteristics and bond properties of concrete. Recent studies showed that frost action leads to a reduction of compressive and tensile strength, an increasing of peak strain and fracture energy and a reduction of bond strength. In the present work an innovative formulation recently proposed by the authors within the framework of coupled environmental-mechanical damage approach is reorganized and further enhanced considering additional experimental tests in order to be more general. Furthermore the proposed model is used as a predictive tool to evaluate load carrying capacity of some frost damaged beams showing the robustness and efficacy of the numerical procedure in reproducing the main experimental evidenced of structural behaviour of R/C affected by action of freeze-and-thawing cycles (FTC).
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