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High temperature effects in mortar and concrete specimens using a meso-mechanical model with fracture based zero-thickness interface elements

Abstract:

This paper describes recent numerical simulation results of a purely mechanical study of the effects of high temperature in mortar and concrete. The material has been considered as a two-phase composite, with different thermal expansion laws of matrix and particles taken from the literature. The numerical simulation is based on a meso-mechanical model developed in the group of Mechanics of Materials UPC, which represents the largest aggregate particles explicitly, and represent cracks in a discrete manner by inserting zerothickness interface elements in all potential crack trajectories a priori of the analysis. The differential expansions create tensile stresses and therefore cracking, that eventually may close, reopen and lead to non-trivial overall material behavior. The results are discussed and compared to the experimental information available, and lead to a general good agreement, capturing the essential mechanisms described in the literature.