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Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
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ScienceDirect
Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2019) 000–000
Structural
Procedia Integrity
Structural Procedia
Integrity 23 00 (2019)
(2019) 000–000
167–172 www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia

9th International Conference on Materials Structure and Micromechanics of Fracture

9th International Conference on Materials Structure and Micromechanics of Fracture
Parametric
Parametric Study
Study of
of Cohesive
Cohesive ITZ
ITZ in
in Meso-scale
Meso-scale Concrete
Concrete Model
Model
Jiaming Wanga,∗ a b
a,∗, Andrey P Jivkova , Dirk L Engelbergb , Q.M. Lia
a
Jiaming
a
Wang , Andrey P Jivkov , Dirk L Engelberg , Q.M. Li
School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
a School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
b Materials Performance Centre, School of Materials, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
b Materials Performance Centre, School of Materials, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

Abstract
Abstract
Modelling of concrete at the meso-scale provides an effective way to analyse the effects of its constituents on damage initiation and
Modelling of concrete
evolution, leading at theunderstanding
to better meso-scale provides an effective
and predicting way tointegrity.
structural analyse Majority
the effectsofofworks
its constituents on on
to date focus damage
models initiation and
calibration
evolution, leading to better understanding and predicting structural integrity. Majority of works to date
and validation with experiments in either tension or compression, leaving open the question of how such models perform underfocus on models calibration
and validation
complex stress with experiments
states. This work in either atension
presents or compression,
modelling approach that leaving open
includes all the
keyquestion of how
constituents such
of the modelsmeso-structure:
concrete perform under
complex stress states.
coarse aggregates, This workbypresents
represented a modelling
inclusions approach that
with elastic-brittle includes
behaviour, all key
mortar constituents
(including of thesand
cement, concrete meso-structure:
and fine aggregates),
coarse aggregates,
represented represented bybehaviour,
with plastic-damage inclusionsinterfacial
with elastic-brittle behaviour,
transition zones (ITZ)mortar
between (including cement,
aggregates sand and
and mortar, fine aggregates),
represented by zero-
represented with plastic-damage
thickness cohesive interfaces, andbehaviour,
air voids orinterfacial transition
pores. Tension zones (ITZ) between
and compression experimentsaggregates and mortar,
with mortar represented
specimens by zero-
are conducted to
thickness cohesive interfaces,
obtain its plastic-damage and air voids
constitutive or pores.
law. Similar Tension and
experiments compression
with concrete withexperiments with mortar
several aggregate specimens
volume areare
fractions conducted
conducted to
obtain its plastic-damage constitutive law. Similar experiments with concrete with several aggregate volume
to obtain stress-strain behaviours for further calibration of cohesive laws and model validation. Numerical simulations show thatfractions are conducted
to
theobtain
proposedstress-strain
approachbehaviours for further of
with pre-calibration calibration of cohesive
mortar behaviour lawstoand
leads verymodel
goodvalidation.
agreementsNumerical simulations
between the predictions showof that
the
the proposed
concrete approach with
meso-structural pre-calibration
models of mortarresults
and the experimental behaviour
underleads
both to very and
tension goodcompression.
agreements The
between the predictions
calibration of the
of ITZ cohesive
concrete meso-structural
laws is performed models and
by a parametric the of
study experimental results
the effects of under
critical both
stress andtension and
fracture compression.
energy The calibration
on the predicted of ITZ
stress-strain cohesive
curves and
laws is performed by a parametric study of the effects of critical stress and fracture
fracture patterns. The results are used to propose a practical set of ITZ cohesive parameters. energy on the predicted stress-strain curves and
fracture patterns. The results are used to propose a practical set of ITZ cohesive parameters.
©2019
© 2019The The Authors.
Authors. Published
Published by Elsevier
by Elsevier B.V. B.V.
© 2019
This The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
This isisananopen
open access
access article
article under
under the BY-NC-ND
the CC CC BY-NC-ND licenselicense (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
This is an
Peer-review open
Peer-reviewunder access
under article
responsibility under
of the
responsibility the CC
of scientificBY-NC-ND
committee
the scientific oflicense
committee (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
the ICMSMF
of the IC organizers
MSMF organizers.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the IC MSMF organizers.
Keywords: Concrete meso-structure; Cohesive interfaces; Critical stress; Fracture energy; Failure patterns
Keywords: Concrete meso-structure; Cohesive interfaces; Critical stress; Fracture energy; Failure patterns

1. Introduction
1. Introduction
Concrete is a composite material, which demands some explicit representation of its heterogeneous composition for
Concrete is athe
understanding composite
initiationmaterial, whichof
and evolution demands
localisedsome explicit representation
phenomena, such as damageof its
andheterogeneous
fracture. At thecomposition for
largest length
understanding the initiation and evolution of localised phenomena, such as damage and fracture. At the largest
scale with observable heterogeneities, called the meso-scale, the concrete constituents are: coarse aggregates, mortar length
scale with
(cement observable
with sand andheterogeneities,
fine aggregates called the meso-scale,
embedded) theentrapped
and air voids concrete in
constituents
the mortar.are: coarse aggregates,
Aggregates mortar
are elastic-brittle
(cement with sand and fine aggregates embedded) and air voids entrapped in the mortar. Aggregates are
stones, gravel or crashed, but their strength is higher than the stresses reached at concrete failure. As they remainelastic-brittle
stones, gravel
in elastic or crashed,
regime, aggregates butare
their strength is
represented as higher
elastic than the stresses
inclusions reached
with their at concrete
specific stiffness.failure.
MortarAs they remain
is modelled as
in elastic regime, aggregates are represented as elastic inclusions with their specific stiffness. Mortar
a homogeneous continuum with elastic-plastic or elastic-plastic-damage behaviour to represent the processes of slipis modelled as
a homogeneous continuum with elastic-plastic or elastic-plastic-damage behaviour to represent the processes of slip

∗ Corresponding author.
∗ Corresponding
E-mail address:author.
[email protected]
E-mail address: [email protected]
2210-7843 © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
2210-7843
This © 2019
is an open The Authors.
access Published by Elsevier B.V.
2452-3216 © 2019 Thearticle under
Authors. the CC BY-NC-ND
Published license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
by Elsevier B.V.
This is an open
Peer-review access
under article under
responsibility the CC BY-NC-ND
of the license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
This is an open access article under the scientific
CC BY-NC-NDcommittee of the
license IC MSMF organizers.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee ofof the ICthe
MSMF organizers.
ICMSMF organizers
10.1016/j.prostr.2020.01.081
168 Jiaming Wang et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 23 (2019) 167–172
2 J. Wang et al. / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2019) 000–000

and re-arragement of its constituents. The latter representation is used here. In addition to these meso-constituents, it
is known that aggregates are coated with higher-porosity mortar with distinct properties, which is referred to as inter-
facial transition zones (ITZ) with typical thickness between 10 and 100 µm [1, 2]. Having lower stiffness and strength
than mortar, ITZ provide both preferable locations for damage initiation and easier pathways for crack development.
The physical ITZ thickness is negligible in comparison with coarse aggregates, which makes ITZ models with phys-
ical thickness computationally demanding, sometimes prohibitively. This is presently tackled by representing ITZ as
zero-thickness interfaces between aggregates and mortar, modelled computationally by cohesive elements [3–7]. Key
parameters of ITZ cohesive laws, such as stiffness, critical strength and fracture energy, in both normal and shear
directions, cannot be determined readily with existing experimental techniques. Therefore a combination of judgment
as to how these differ from the mortar and parametric studies is used for their calibration. Selection of appropriate pa-
rameters is made by comparisons with experimentally observed macroscopic behaviour, including stress-strain curves
and crack patterns. Previous works have demonstrated calibration of cohesive laws with experiments in either tension
[3–6] or compression [7]. However, there is no work demonstrating the performance of calibrated cohesive laws un-
der both tension and compression, which is an essential condition for using this type of meso-structure models under
complex stress states existing in real engineering structures. One critical element of the meso-structure - elastic aggre-
gates, plastic-damage mortar, cohesive ITZ - is the very distinct behaviour of mortar under tension and compression.
Its proper determination appears to be key to the successful modelling of concrete under complex stresses.
The aim of this paper is to clarify the effect of ITZ cohesive parameters on predicted concrete behaviour, when
the properties of the other constituents are determined by experiments. It is shown that the mortar plastic-damage
behaviour has the strongest influence on the energy dissipation and overall stress-strain behaviour under both tension
and compression. The effect of ITZ parameters is limited to the post-peak softening branch and the crack patterns.

2. Experimental and modelling background

Quasi-static experiments were carried out on mortar and concrete specimens: cylindrical specimens with diameter
100 mm and height 200 mm were tested in compression, dogbone specimens were tested in tension. Limestone
aggregates with sieve size distribution between 6.3 and 10 mm were used for concrete samples. These were prepared
with 40% aggregate volume fractions. Mortar specimens had the same water-cement-sand mixes as the ones used for
concrete samples. Detailed experiment design will be presented elsewhere. 3D meso-structures were generated within
prescribed volumes by random distribution of spherical aggregates with sizes selected from the sieve distribution and
voids with 1% volume fraction. The generation used the ’take-and-place’ procedure described in detail in [8]. For
this work, the meso-structures covered cylindrical volumes with diameter of 50 mm and height of 100 mm due to the
computational cost if modelling the original cylinder. The same cylinders were adopted under tension, because direct
tension test with cylinder was experimentally challenging and dogbone samples were applied for standard tension
experiments. The volumes were tessellated into voxels in preparation for meshing used in image-based modelling.
Voxel size of 0.25 mm was adopted after mesh sensitivity test. Tetrahedral meshes, covering aggregates and mortar
phases were derived and an in-house procedure was used to insert zero-thickness cohesive elements (CE) at the
aggregate-mortar interfaces to represent ITZ.
The concrete-damage-plasticity (CDP) model is adopted for the constitutive law of mortar, because mortar can be
considered as a lower-scale concrete. Under compression, the stress-strain response can be classified into four stages:
linear elasticity, plasticity, strain hardening up to onset of damage and strain softening. The full expression is described
by Equation (1) [9], where σc and εc are the current compressive stress and strain, respectively, σc0 and εc0 are the
peak stress and corresponding strain, respectively, and εcu is the strain at damage initiation, αa and αd are coefficients
related with σcu . Under tension, the stress-strain relation is linear up to the peak stress, while the post peak behaviour
can be expressed by Equation (2) [9], where αt is a coefficient related with σt0 .
 E0 εc σc
σcu , σc0 ≤ 0.4





  2  3


 εc εc εc σc εc
 (3 2α ) (α 2)
σc α
 a εcu + − a εcu + a − εcu , σc0 ≥ 0.4 & εcu ≤ 1
= (1)
σcu  


εc

 εcu


   , εc ≥ 1
 α εc − 1 2 + εc εcu

d εcu εcu
 Jiaming Wang et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 23 (2019) 167–172 169
J. Wang et al. / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2019) 000–000 3

Fig. 1. Stress-strain curves obtained with variable ITZ cohesive strength under compression (a) and tension (b)

Table 1. Parameters of cohesive zone model for ITZ

Model Number 1 7 16 17 18 9 10 19 20

Cohesive strength MPa 3.5/10.5 2.5/7.5 1.5/4.5 3.5/3.5 3.5/21 3.5/10.5 3.5/10.5 3.5/10.5 3.5/10.5
Fracture energy N/mm 0.03/0.09 0.03/0.09 0.03/0.09 0.03/0.09 0.03/0.09 0.01/0.03 0.05/0.15 0.03/0.18 0.03/0.3

Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio of limestone aggregates were taken from [10] - 45 GPa and 0.2, respectively.
Compression and tension experiment results for mortar provided Young’s modulus of 20 GPa, compressive strength
of 56 MPa and and tensile strength of 3.7 MPa. These were used to calibrate the CDP model.
εt
σt εt0
= (2)
σt0 α  εt − 11.7 + εt
t εt0 εt0

CE representing ITZ used a traction-separation law described in [5]. The CE stiffness is set to be 105 MPa/mm
[8]. The critical traction in normal mode (normal strength) cannot exceed the tensile strength of mortar, so a set
of critical tractions between 1.5 and 3.5 MPa were tested. The ITZ fracture energy in normal mode is lower than
the mortar due to higher porosity of ITZ. A set of fracture energies between 0.01 and 0.05 N/mm were tested. In a
number of previous works, the normal and shear modes strength and fracture energy were assumed to be the same
[4–6]. However, based on experimental evidence, [7] adopted significantly larger shear strength and fracture energy,
specifically between three and ten times larger. Three times larger shear strength and energy are adopted in this work.
The combinations used in simulations presented in the next section are shown in Table 1, where the first and second
numbers denote the normal and shear values, respectively. Specimens were loaded via displacements parallel to the
cylinder axis prescribed at the two circular surfaces. Displacements at one of the surfaces were zero. At the other
surface displacements were given at surface nodes in tension, and via a rigid plate in compression. After testing
different model realisations, i.e. different spatial distributions of aggregates, and knowing that the stress-strain curves
were the same, one representative realisation was selected to carry out all simulations in both tension and compression.

3. Results and discussion

Results obtained with variable normal cohesive strength under compression and tension are presented as follows.
Fig. 1 shows the stress-strain curves together with the experimental results. Fig. 2 shows energy dissipations in mortar
and ITZ, where DMD and PD corresponds to damage and plastic dissipation energy. Fig. 3 shows the crack patterns
assuming a damage factor SDEG > 0.9 under compression and SDEG > 0.5 under tension, where SDEG=1 means
170 Jiaming Wang et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 23 (2019) 167–172
4 J. Wang et al. / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2019) 000–000

Fig. 2. Dissipated energy with variable ITZ cohesive strength under compression (a) and tension (b), where inserts show damage by ITZ

Fig. 3. Crack patterns of critical stress effect under compression (a) and tension (b) for whole model and damaged elements

complete failure. It can be seen that in compression (Fig. 1a), both normal and shear cohesive strengths have a sig-
nificant effect on the predicted concrete strength. As the normal ITZ strength increases, see Models 16, 7 and 1, the
concrete strength grows by 11% from 32 to 36 MPa. Comparison with experimental data suggests that the normal ITZ
strength is close to the mortar tensile strength of 3.7 MPa, as presented by Model 1. As the shear cohesive strength
increases, see Models 17, 1 and 18, the concrete strength grows by 18% from 31 to 38 MPa. This is in agreement
with the work by [7], who compared shear strengths between one and six times the normal strength of 2.7 MPa and
found increasing compressive strength. The results presented here, suggest that a shear strength three times of the
normal strength (Model 1) is a good approximation. Further, Model 1 experiences more rapid softening than Models
7 and 16, i.e. the larger the normal cohesive strength for the same cohesive energy, the faster the softening. This can
be linked to the energy dissipation and failure patterns: the plastic and damage dissipations are faster in Model 1 (Fig.
2a), leading to the rapid softening (Fig. 1a) and the most localised crack pattern (Fig. 3a). This crack pattern is closest
to the experiment. Noted that the failure patterns of Models 18 are the same as Model 17 in compression and tension.
According to the results in tension, the normal cohesive strength does not affect the stress-strain curve (Fig. 1b), and
crack patterns (Fig. 3b), which contradicts previous studies of tensile failure by [3–6]. However, in all these studies
the continuum elements covering mortar and aggregate phases were assumed to have elastic behaviour, while energy
 Jiaming Wang et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 23 (2019) 167–172 171
J. Wang et al. / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2019) 000–000 5

Fig. 4. Stress-strain curve (a) and dissipated energy (b) with variable ITZ fracture energy under compression, where inserts show damage by ITZ

was dissipated only by damage of cohesive elements, either along ITZ and between mortar elements [3, 6], or along
ITZ and between mortar and aggregate elements [4, 5]. The introduction of damage-plasticity behaviour of mortar
in the present work, which is critical for capturing the compressive behaviour with the same material parameters,
changes the tensile behaviour. Firstly, a crack pattern with one dominant crack is observed (Fig. 3b), unlike the
previous studies, where more than one cracks could be predicted to develop. This is in qualitative agreement with
our tensile experiments. The energy dissipation is dominated by mortar plasticity (Fig. 2b) and as the ITZ normal
cohesive strength increases, ITZ elements are less damaged seen by comparing Models 16, 7 and 1 in Fig. 2b and 3b.
The presented results suggest that the mortar damage-plasticity plays a role in localising the damage into a dominant
crack faster with increasing ITZ cohesive strength. A rough estimate of the concrete fracture energy predicted by the
present model can be made by using the total work up to specimen failure and the specimen cross-section, giving 203
N/mm. This is in very good agreement with experimentally determined fracture energy for the same type of concrete
[11], which provides a strong support to the proposed modelling.
Results obtained by compression with variable ITZ normal and shear fracture energy are shown in Fig. 4 and 5.
It can be seen that the use of very low ITZ fracture energy (Model 9) does not provide good agreement with the
experimental data (Fig. 4a). The effect of ITZ normal fracture energy is deduced by comparing the results of Models
9, 1 and 10 in Fig. 4b. The significant reduction of the concrete compressive strength for small normal fracture energy,
Model 9, is due to earlier development of damage in ITZ and mortar and plastic dissipation in mortar. However, the
energy dissipation rates are lower than in Model 1, resulting in an unrealistic crack pattern, as mortar plasticity and
damage are not able to localise the evolution (Fig. 5a). For large normal fracture energies, Models 10, 19 and 20, the
onsets of energy dissipation are similar to Model 1, resulting in similar pre-peak behaviour, but the damage dissipation
is smaller, resulting again in unrealistic localisation of cracks (Fig. 5a). By comparing results with different ITZ shear
fracture energy, Models 1, 19 and 20, it is shown that large mode II to mode I ratios, such as 6 or 10, lead to increased
plastic dissipation in mortar, but reduced damage in ITZ and mortar (Fig. 4a). As for large normal energies, this leads
to unrealistic localisation of cracks (Fig. 4b). ITZ’s normal and shear fracture energy have negligible effect on the
concrete tension behaviour, i.e. stress-strain curve, crack pattern and energy release.

4. Conclusions

Meso-structural models of concrete are constructed using experimentally measured mortar behaviour. Calibration
of ITZ cohesive behaviour is carried out by parametric study of the effects of the normal and shear cohesive strengths
and fracture energies on the concrete tensile and compressive behaviour. The main findings are as follows. Mortar
plasticity and damage dominate the energy dissipation in both tension and compression. In tension, this dominance is
translated into independence of stress-strain behaviour from ITZ cohesive parameters, and fast localisation of damage
 172 Jiaming Wang et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 23 (2019) 167–172
6 J. Wang et al. / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2019) 000–000

Fig. 5. Crack patterns of fracture-energy effect under compression (a) and tension (b) for whole model and damaged elements

into a dominant crack. The localisation is governed by mortar damage. In compression, the stress-strain behaviour
is affected by the ITZ cohesive parameters - increasing ITZ cohesive strength and fracture energy increases concrete
strength. The results suggest: ITZ normal cohesive strength close to the mortar tensile strength and cohesive energy
of 0.03 N/mm; ratio between ITZ shear and normal cohesive strengths approximately three.

Acknowledgements

Wang acknowledges the support of Manchester X-ray Imaging Facility for using Aviso and Simpleware and IT
Services for using Computational Shared Facility (CSF). Jivkov acknowledges gratefully the financial support of
EPSRC via grant EP/N026136/1.

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