Self-compacting concrete (SCC) is increasingly applied in the construction industries dueto its advantages of outstanding workability and eco-friendliness. However, few experimentalstudies on the mechanical behaviors of SCC under cyclic direct tension are available in theliterature. In this work, experimental investigations of mechanical behaviors of SCC under cyclicdirect tension were conducted. Especially, direct tensile load equipment was developed. It is foundthat the envelope stress-strain curve under cyclic direct tension is close to that under monotonicdirect tension; however, it is different from that in a compressive case. It is also revealed that theratio of unloading strain to irreversible strain is approximately linearly dependent on unloadingstrain. The evolutions of energy dissipation for SCC under both cyclic direct tension andcompression are similar to those of normally vibrated concrete. In addition, Poisson's ratio isobserved to be nearly 0.21 for SCC. Furthermore, a damage model enabling characterization of thestress-strain curve under both monotonic and cyclic loading was proposed and verified againstexperimental results. Therefore, the results in this work provide original research material forstudying and modelling the mechanical behaviors of SCC under uniaxial cyclic direct tension.
Keywords: cyclic direct tension; damage model; energy dissipation; self-compacting concrete; stress-stain curve.