Numerical Analyses of the Fracturing Process of Meso-structures Consisting of One Particle with Polyhedral Shapes

Author(s): Xueqian Yin, Lin Liu, Huisu Chen and Zhigang Zhu
Paper category: Proceedings
Book title: 3rd International RILEM Conference on Microstructure Related Durability of Cementitious Composites
Editor(s): Changwen Miao, Wei Sun, Jiaping Liu, Huisu Chen, Guang Ye and Klaas van Breugel
Print-ISBN: 978-2-35158-188-9
e-ISBN: 978-2-35158-189-6
Publisher: RILEM Publications SARL
Publication year: 2016
Pages: 234-241
Total Pages : 8
Language : English

Abstract: Investigations on the mechanical properties of concrete by computational modeling mostly were based on the meso-structure of concrete with spherical particles in the past decades. It may result in a significant discrepancy in simulations by ignoring the aggregate shape effects.
Previous study about effects of particle shape in one particle system of spherical, ellipsoidal and irregular-shaped particle on its mechanical properties has been carried out by the authors.
It is found that the influence of particle sphericity is pronounced. In addition, the angle of placed particle relative to the tensile loading direction (i.e., tensile angle) is also a key point.
Continuing to previous study, for polyhedral particles, this paper will explore the particle shape effects on the mechanical properties of one particle system under tensile loading by 3D numerical modeling. First, the meso-structures of five convex polyhedral particles (i.e. a tetrahedron, a cube, an octahedron, a dodecahedron and an icosahedron) are constructed with same particle volume fraction respectively. Then, the constructed meso-structures are digitalized into voxels, and a 3D lattice fracturing analysis is performed on the digitalized meso-structures by applying tensile displacement. Considering the influence of the tensile angle, several cases for each shaped particle are constructed respectively. In this study, the first crack initiation point, max load, the load-displacement curve, and crack propagation are presented and discussed. It is found that the particle shape has a significant effect on the max load and the initiation point of first crack, while it has little effect on the crack propagation.

Online publication : 2016
Publication type : full_text
Public price (Euros) : 0.00