Recent developments in mechanical and uncertainty modelling of concrete

Abstract

Concrete is one of the most widely used materials in civil and infrastructure engineering in the world, just following water. Therefore, the serviceability and safety of concrete structures are of paramount importance. The modeling of mechanical properties of concrete and the uncertainty quantification are the two cornerstones for reliability evaluation and rational design decision of concrete structures. In the past 50 years, extensive endeavors have been devoted to these two aspects and great progresses have been made. In the present paper, investigations of and advances in mechanical and probabilistic modeling of concrete are reviewed, including the constitutive law of concrete material, the uncertainty quantification of parameters and constitutive laws of concrete, the nonlinear analysis of concrete structures, and the modeling of concrete properties in the design codes including the JCSS Probabilistic Model Code, fib Model Code, Chinese standard and Eurocodes. In particular, the transitions from uni-axial to multi-axial constitutive law, from probability distribution of major parameters and empirical relationship between parameters to full probabilistic quantification of the constitutive law of concrete, and from structural nonlinear analysis based on component internal force vs. deformation restoring force relationship to the framework based on continuum mechanics involving constitutive law are stressed.