Experimental Evaluation and Theoretical Simulation of Self Compacting Concrete by the Modif ied Distinct Element Method (MDEM)

Two aspects of research concerning the self compacting concrete techniques have been extensively carried out in Japan. One aspect is to find a systematic way to evaluate the consistency experimentally. The other is to seek a theoretical way to predict the properties. Thus for the first goal, in this paper three kinds of methods including the dragging ball viscometer test, the slump flow test and the O75 funnel test were proposed to investigate the influence of concrete mixture proportions on the consistency of viscous agent series self compacting concrete. For the second goal, a numerical approach was initially proposed to simulate the behavior of self compacting concrete called Modified Distinct Element Method (MDEM). The applicability of MDEM is verified by comparing the simulation results with the experimental results of the above three types of tests.