Gradual Crushing of Steel Reinforced HPFRCC Beams: Experiments and Simulations
Publication: Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 147, Issue 8
Abstract
While the tensile performance of high-performance fiber-reinforced cementitious composites (HPFRCC) has been extensively studied, the crushing behavior is less understood. Notably, crushing is an important load-reduction mechanism for reinforced HPFRCC flexural members that fail in a ductile mode, i.e., failure after gradual strain hardening of the steel reinforcement accompanied by gradual HPFRCC crushing. This study first investigates the crushing behavior of HPFRCC flexural members through experimental testing of two reinforced HPFRCC beams. The experimental program includes two types of HPFRCC materials: engineered cementitious composites (ECC) and ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC). The test results show that both ECC and UHPC gradually soften in compression after the initiation of crushing, which is in contrast to the more brittle crushing behavior typically observed in conventional concrete. In addition to the experimental investigation, a new HPFRCC compression model is implemented in a two-dimensional finite-element analysis to simulate the gradual compression softening behavior in reinforced HPFRCC flexural members. Different modeling strategies are compared and evaluated. Results show that the proposed model with an initial material flaw, the new compression model, and a hybrid-rotating/fixed-crack model best predict the reinforced HPFRCC structural performance, especially the failure mode and drift capacity.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, or code generated or used during the study are available from the corresponding author by request.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Charles H. Leavell fellowship and the John A. Blume Earthquake Engineering Center at Stanford University. The authors appreciate the cylinder end-grinding service at the concrete material lab of California DOT, Sacramento. The authors also gratefully appreciate the material support from LafargeHolcim (US), Inc., Chicago, IL. The authors thank Gregory Nault for his help and advice in preparing the UHPC specimens. The authors also thank James Bicamumpaka for his assistance with the lab work.
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Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 147 • Issue 8 • August 2021
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© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Jul 30, 2020
Accepted: Mar 30, 2021
Published online: May 22, 2021
Published in print: Aug 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Oct 22, 2021
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