Constitutive Damage Model of Foamed Lightweight Concrete Using Statistical Damage Theory

Materials (Basel). 2023 Aug 30;16(17):5946. doi: 10.3390/ma16175946.

Abstract

Foamed lightweight concrete has been applied in different fields of civil engineering because of its superior properties, but the related research considering internal pore damage is limited. Based on statistical damage theory and considering the uneven distribution of fracture damage and strength between the pores of light concrete, a damage constitutive model of foamed lightweight concrete was established based on the Weibull function. The parameters of the damage model were determined through a triaxial compression test, and the rationality was verified by combining the existing test data. Comparative tests show that the theoretical calculation results of the proposed statistical damage model of foamed light soil are consistent with the general trend of the experimental results, reflecting the value of the peak stress and strain and describing the overall development law of the stress and strain. The best fit was obtained when the confining pressure was 0.3 MPa and the density was 700 kg·m-3. The suggested damage constitutive method is highly applicable, which is of great significance to the microscopic mechanical analysis of foamed light concrete and the structural design in civil engineering.

Keywords: constitutive model; foamed lightweight concrete; pore damage; statistical damage theory.