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Abstract
The mechanical properties of engineering materials are routinely determined by testing. In practice, the dimensions of structural
elements are often much larger than those of the samples that, for technical or economic reasons, can be subjected to laboratory
testing. Consequently, testing is usually conducted on reduced scale models or material samples. At the same time, available the-
ories of material behavior that predict size or strain rate effects are receiving increasing attention in the technical literature. How-
ever, finite element models or similar representations, used for engineering predictions of the strength or loading capacity of large
structures, rarely consider the influence of scale.
The so-called discrete element method (DEM), in which a solid is replaced by a three-dimensional lattice of one-dimensional
elements linking lumped nodal masses, has been extensively used to determine the dynamic response of concrete structures sub-
jected to loads that produce fracture and fragmentation. In this paper, it is shown how the two major causes of size effects,
namely the non-homogeneous character of the materials and the occurrence of fracture, can be incorporated in the analysis, in
order to improve the prediction capability of the method. The latter is validated by numerically analyzing geometrically similar
reinforced concrete beams, tested to rupture by Leonhart and Walter (1965). Those tests were later reproduced by Ramallo et al.
(1993). Both the non-homogeneous character of concrete and steel were taken into account in the DEM, by assuming that the
initial modulus and specific fracture energy are random fields in three-dimensional space. The constitutive criteria for the lattice
elements, employed earlier by the authors to account for the energy dissipated by fracture, is adopted in the paper, with improve-
ments in the consideration of the cross-correlation between relevant variables. As additional evidence of the reliability of the
approach, the discrete numerical model was also used to numerically simulate experimental results due to Vliet et al. (2000),
aimed at quantifying the influence of sample size on the tensile strength of concrete.
# 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
fragile materials, in which well-defined cracks occur, or discussions of size and strain rate effects on the mech-
in materials that present localized damaged zones. anical properties of solids, from a continuum standpoint,
These include many engineering materials such as con- was recently presented by Morquio [15]. Morquio and
crete, mortars, asphalt mixtures or rocks. Within this Riera [16,17], also furnish experimental evidence for
group, cement concrete has possibly been the most the tensile strength of mild steel.
widely used material in the last century and has in As anticipated above, an alternative model [12,25],
consequence attracted considerable attention. In this based on the representation of solids as a three-dimen-
connection, relevant studies, such as those due to sional lattice of uniaxial elements, has been successfully
Kaplan [5], date back to the second half of last cen- used in the last two decades for purposes of dynamic
tury. Between 1976 and 1978, Hilleborg et al. [6], analysis of structures subjected to fracturing and frag-
inspired in the concept of softening and in the process mentation, phenomena that are typical of the failure
of plastic fracture, proposed the fictitious crack model, stage of reinforced concrete structures. Iturrioz and
which had a decisive influence in further developments, Riera [18–20], Rios [21], Rios and Riera [22] used the
while Bažant [7] introduced the cracked band model to model in conjunction with explicit numerical inte-
explain size effects in concrete. Afterwards, Bažant gration of the equations of motion. In addition to its
[13,14] derived simple expressions to account for the simplicity and flexibility, this approach permits the sim-
influence of size on the nominal failure strength of fra- ultaneous consideration of causes (a) and (b) of size
gile materials, such as concrete subjected to static load- effects, indicated before, and may be reliably used for
ings. prediction purposes. This paper describes the basic fea-
A quite different approach to the so-called size effect tures of the method, as well as its validation in connec-
was proposed by Carpinteri et al. [8–11], justified by tion with the quantification of size effects, by the
the apparently fractal properties of fissures in several numerical determination of the response of reinforced
materials. Carpinteri suggests that the difference concrete beams of various sizes tested in Germany and
between the fractal characteristics of cracks and micro- Argentina and, in addition, of unreinforced specimens
cracks at different observation scales constitutes the of various sizes subjected to tension, tested in Holland.
main cause of size effects in concrete, notion that is It is shown that the influence of scale, as well as the
strongly questioned by Bažant [7,13]. inherent variability of the experimental results, are cor-
In summary, three basic phenomena have been poin- rectly accounted for, thus validating the approach for
ted out as responsible for size effects in the mechanical the numerical analysis of concrete structures liable to
properties of engineering material: (a) the random dis- experience such effects.
tribution of local material properties (Weibull
approach), (b) the energy necessary to form the new
surfaces that bound cracks, in linear elastic fracture 2. The discrete element model of solids (DEM)
mechanics (LEFM) or other related theories, including
damage and fracture band models, (c) the theory of The approach is based on the representation of a
fractals. Models that incorporate more than one basic solid by an arrangement of elements able to carry only
cause of size effects have already been discussed in the axial loads. The cubic arrangement shown in Fig. 1,
technical literature [14]. The objective of this paper is consists of a cell with eight nodes at its corners plus a
to describe the methodology necessary to consider the central node. Nayfeh and Hefzy [23] determined the
causes responsible for size effects in a discrete, numeri- properties of an equivalent orthotropic elastic con-
cal formulation that has proved both powerful and tinuum, in order to model panels made of large num-
efficient for determining the response of concrete struc- bers of small interconnected bars, widely employed in
tures to short-time dynamic loading. Consideration of the aeronautical industry. Thus, plate or shell finite
the influence of scale is considered an essential feature elements (FEM) for orthotropic materials could be
of methods of analysis used to predict the strength, i.e. used with considerable reduction in the size of the
the failure loads, of large size structures, such as resulting FE models. The discrete elements represen-
nuclear power plants containment buildings and other tation of the orthotropic continuum was adopted by
containment structures, dams or bridges. The preceding the authors to solve structural dynamics problems by
discussion aims at bringing the issue, which is not part means of explicit direct numerical integration of the
of current engineering practice, into proper focus. equations of motion, assuming the mass lumped at the
It must be mentioned at this point that most pre- nodes. Each node has three degrees of freedom, corre-
vious developments in this area were based on the sponding to the nodal displacements in the three
basic assumptions of Continuum Mechanics, or aimed orthogonal coordinate directions. For a cubic arrange-
at applications of methods of analysis founded on ment, the lengths
pffiffiffi of longitudinal and diagonal elements
those assumptions, as for instance, finite (FEM) or are Lo and 3=2 Lo , respectively. The equivalence
boundary element (BEM) methods. A comprehensive between the orthotropic elastic solid with the ortho-
R.D. Rios, J.D. Riera / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 1115–1125 1117
Fig. 1. Cubic arrangements of discrete elements: (a) cubic cell, (b) and (c) structural models.
Fig. 4. Evolution of loads with time for the numerical models of beams D1 to D4.
1120 R.D. Rios, J.D. Riera / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 1115–1125
Fig. 5. Crack patterns in model D1: (a) before peak load is reached and (b) at time when peak.
R.D. Rios, J.D. Riera / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 1115–1125 1121
Fig. 7. Crack patterns in model D3: (a) below the maximum load, (b) at the time of failure and, (c) final configuration, after failure.
Fig. 8. Crack patterns in model D4: (a) below the maximum load, (b) final configuration, after failure.
Table 3
Dimensions, loads and stresses measured in beams tested in Stuttgart and Tucumán
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Laboratory Beam L av h b As l (%) fc M/Vh Pc Failure
(mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm2) (MPa) (kN)
Pu (kN) Vu s0 Msu reu rsu Mean
(kN) (MPa) (kN m) (MPa) (MPa) (MPa)
Stuttgart, D1/1 520 210 70 50 2U6 1.71 38.0 3 5.33 14.9 7.4 2.48 1.56 434 6.34
Germany D1/2 520 210 70 50 2U6 1.71 38.0 3 4.48 14.7 7.3 2.44 1.54 428 6.28 6.31
D2/1 1040 420 140 100 2U12 1.66 38.2 3 12.0 43.2 21.6 1.82 9.1 323 4.65
D2/2 1040 420 140 100 2U12 1.66 38.2 3 11.2 47.4 23.7 1.99 9.9 352 5.05 4.85
D3/1 1560 630 210 150 2U18 1.62 39.4 3 24.0 94.6 47.3 1.77 29.8 319 4.50
D3/2 1560 630 210 150 2U18 1.62 39.4 3 22.0 90.8 43.7 1.63 27.5 294 4.16 4.33
D4/1 2080 840 280 200 2U24 1.67 36.1 3 36.9 151 75.5 1.59 63.4 278 4.04
D4/2 2080 840 280 200 2U24 1.67 36.1 3 31.0 141 72.7 1.53 61.0 268 3.89 3.96
Tucumán, D1/1 520 210 70 50 2U6 1.60 37.3 3 4.67 13.8 6.9 2.3 1.45 435 5.92 –
Argentina D2/1 1040 420 140 100 2U12 1.61 37.3 3 11.4 52.5 26.3 2.21 11.0 409 5.61 –
D3/1 1560 630 210 150 2U16 1.63 37.3 3 22.9 93.1 46.6 1.74 29.4 320 4.44 –
1U12
D4/1 2080 840 280 200 3U20 1.68 37.3 3 38.0 147.5 73.8 1.55 62.0 277 3.95 –
1122 R.D. Rios, J.D. Riera / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 1115–1125
Table 4
Data for simulation analysis and computed response
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Beam L av h b As l (%) fc M/Vh Pc Failure
(mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm2) (MPa) (kN)
Pu Vu s0 Msu reu rsu Mean
(kN) (kN) (MPa) (kN m) (MPa) (MPa) (MPa)
Simulation D1/1 520 210 70 50 2U6 1.60 37.3 3 6.87 13.8 6.9 2.31 1.45 – 5.06 –
D2/1 1040 420 140 100 2U12 1.61 37.3 3 8.16 51.5 25.75 2.16 10.81 – 5.51 –
D3/1 1560 630 210 150 2U16 1.63 37.3 3 25.0 91.6 45.8 1.71 28.85 – 4.36 –
D4/1 2080 840 280 200 3U20 1.68 37.3 3 34.9 145.5 72.75 1.53 61.11 – 3.87 –
Fig. 9. Crack patterns in model D1: (a) below the maximum load, (b) at the time of failure and, (c) final configuration, after failure.
Fig. 10. Crack patterns in model D2: (a) below the maximum load, (b) at the time of failure and, (c) final configuration, after failure.
which include the experimental values reported by van model representation is capable of quantifying size
Vliet et al. [33]. It may be seen that the agreement is effects due to the combined influence of materials het-
excellent, not only in terms of expected values but also erogeneity and fracture. Fig. 16 shows the reduction of
in terms of inherent variability. This global agreement the ultimate stress in concrete with a reference dimen-
confirms that the present approach may be reliably sion of the model (h, for example). Exponential
used to predict the influence of size effects on the regression models for the experimental and theoretical
response of plain or reinforced concrete structures sub- results are also indicated in the figure. The regression
jected to arbitrary loading conditions. coefficients are almost identical. Similar information in
connection with the shear stress at failure is presented
5. Comments on the predictions of size effects on in Fig. 17, while Fig. 18 shows the evolution of the
structural response ultimate load with the reference length h, for both the
tested and simulated structures. Similar behavior is
The results presented in the last two sections clearly observed in plain concrete or in mortar subjected to
show that the numerical analysis with the discrete tensile stresses, as shown in Fig. 15. The correlation
R.D. Rios, J.D. Riera / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 1115–1125 1123
Fig. 11. Cracking patterns for model D3 under applied loading: (a) before reaching the ultimate load, (b) and (c) rupture configurations.
Fig. 12. Cracking patterns for model D4 under applied loading: (a) before reaching the ultimate load, (b) rupture configurations.
Table 6
Comparison of numerical simulation with experimental results: mean
and S.D. (in brackets)
Fig. 16. Relation between the ultimate compressive stress and the
size of the model.
Fig. 17. Relation between the ultimate shear stress and the size of
the model.
Fig. 18. Relation between the ultimate load and the size of the
model.
6. Conclusions
numerical methods, in relation to Continuum Mech- [16] Morquio A, Riera JD. Size and strain rate effects in the mechan-
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