Stochastic micromechanical predictions for the effective properties of concrete considering the interfacial transition zone effects

Abstract

A stochastic micromechanical framework for predicting the concrete probabilistic behavior is proposed considering the interfacial transition zone effects in this paper. The volume fraction of the interfacial transition zone is analytically calculated based on the aggregate grading. Multilevel homogenization schemes based on the direct interaction micromechanical solutions are presented to predict the concrete effective properties considering the aggregate and interfacial transition zone effects. By modeling the volume fractions and properties of the constituents as stochastic, we extend the deterministic framework to stochastic to incorporate the inherent randomness of effective properties among different concrete specimens. With the moments of the effective properties, the probability density function is approximated using the exponential polynomial for concrete material. Numerical examples including limited experimental validations, comparisons with existing micromechanical models, commonly used probability density functions, and the direct Monte Carlo simulations indicate that the proposed models provide an accurate and computationally efficient framework in characterizing the material’s effective properties. Finally, the effects of the randomness of interfacial transition zone and aggregate on the materials’ macroscopic probabilistic behaviors are investigated based on our proposed stochastic micromechanical framework.