Dynamic Fracture Simulation of Concrete Using a Virtual Internal Bond Model

Abstract

A multiscale virtual internal bond (VIB) model for isotropic materials has been recently proposed to describe material deformation and fracture under quasi-static and dynamic loading situations. Fracture simulation using an isotropic VIB model is made possible by incorporating a cohesive type law, inspired by atomistic-level interaction among particles into a hyperelastic framework at the continuum level. Thus, fracture is built directly into the constitutive formulation. The numerical implementation of the material model for brittle materials into a finite-element scheme and the determination of model parameters has been previously researched. In this paper, the VIB model is applied to the dynamic fracture simulation of plain concrete. The experimental study on the dynamic tensile failure of concrete by Gran et al. is used to determine the VIB model material parameters for plain concrete. Simulations and results of comparisons with the concrete–VIB model with the experimental results are presented in this paper.