Multi-scale representation of plastic deformation in fiber-reinforced materials: Application to reinforced concrete

Abstract

Here we present a multi-scale model to carry out the computation of brittle composite materials reinforced with fibers, and we show its application to standard reinforced concrete. The computation is carried out within an operator-split framework on the macro-scale, which allows for different failure mechanisms to develop in separate phases, as both the concrete and the bond-slip exhibit non-linear behavior. The computations on the micro-scale are performed for each constituent separately. The reinforcement is taken to be linear elastic, and the bond-slip is handled as a plastic deformation. The standard elastoplastic procedure is used to compute the bond stresses, combined with the X-FEM methodology to give the global representation of slip. The crack development in concrete, on the other hand, is described with a damage model with exponential softening, where ED-FEM is used to represent localized failure. A numerical example is shown to test the developed methodology.