Optimized Spacing Of The Longitudinal Reinforcement In CRCP To Avoid Horizontal Cracking

Continuously reinforced concrete pavement (CRCP) is characterized by the absence of transverse contraction joints and the presence of longitudinal and transverse reinforcement. The continuous longitudinal reinforcement holds the transverse cracks, caused by the longitudinal shrinkage of concrete, tightly together and thus provides long term performance with minimal maintenance cost. Field investigations on recently constructed CRCP's in Flanders region of Belgium indicated horizontal cracking in the vicinity of the longitudinal reinforcement under the transverse cracks which eventually causes the punch-out distress at the edge of the pavement slab. This paper shows the results of a finite element (FE) study to investigate the effect of varying longitudinal reinforcement on the risk of horizontal cracking in CRCP under typical Flanders conditions. For this purpose, a (3D) FE model of CRCP is developed using a FE package Diana 10.2. The varying longitudinal reinforcement with a most narrow spacing of 125mm in the outer region of the pavement slab is applied while keeping the same CRCP reinforcement ratio. A comparison is made with the conventional longitudinal reinforcement spacing (170mm). Development of concrete stress in the vicinity of the longitudinal reinforcement is plotted against the different longitudinal steel spacing. Findings show that the stress in concrete near longitudinal reinforcement is significantly reduced up to maximum 17% when the narrow spacing is used. In addition, the steel stress in the longitudinal reinforcing is reduced up to maximum 31.75% in the outer region of the pavement slab.

Study on Mechanical Properties of Basalt Fiber Shotcrete in High Geothermal Environment

With the development of infrastructure, there are growing numbers of high geothermal environments, which, therefore, form a serious threat to tunnel structures. However, research on the changes in mechanical properties of shotcrete under high temperatures and humid environments are insufficient. In this paper, the combination of various temperatures (20 °C/40 °C/60 °C) and 55% relative humidity is used to simulate the effect of environment on the strength and stress–strain curve of basalt fiber reinforced shotcrete. Moreover, a constitutive model of shotcrete considering the effect of fiber content and temperature is established. The results show that the early mechanical properties of BFRS are improved with the increase in curing temperature, while the compressive strength at a later age decreases slightly. The 1-day and 7-day compressive strength of shotcrete at 40 °C and 60 °C increased by 10.5%, 41.1% and 24.1%, 66.8%, respectively. The addition of basalt fiber can reduce the loss of later strength, especially for flexural strength, with a increase rate of 11.9% to 39.5%. In addition, the brittleness of shotcrete increases during high temperature curing, so more transverse cracks are observed in the failure mode, and the peak stress and peak strain decrease. The addition of basalt fiber can improve the ductility and plasticity of shotcrete and increase the peak strain of shotcrete. The constitutive model is in good agreement with the experimental results.

DAMAGE EVOLUTION IN CROSS-PLY LAMINATES UNDER VARIABLE AMPLITUDE CYCLIC LOADINGS

Predicting the initiation and propagation of multiple off-axis cracks in multidirectional laminates under cyclic loadings is essential in a stiffness-driven design approach. Even under a constant amplitude cyclic load, the multiple crack initiation represents always an inherently variable amplitude (VA) problem. Indeed, the initiation of cracks causes a stress re-distribution so that each point in a laminate is subjected to a stress state that changes continuously during the fatigue life. At present, no models or experimental evidences on the crack initiation phenomenon under VA loadings are available in the literature. Crack density prediction models usually rely on a simple linear damage accumulation rule, even if its validity has not been proved yet. In this work, two types of fatigue tests were carried out on glass/epoxy cross-ply laminates under VA two-block loadings: 1) Initially, the number of cycles in the first block was chosen low enough to prevent the initiation of transverse cracks in the first block; then the load was changed and the crack initiation phenomenon was characterized in the second block. 2) Then, two block loadings were applied on other specimens, with a high enough number of cycles in the first block to promote the initiation of multiple cracks; the crack density evolution was thus characterized in both blocks. A model recently developed by the authors was applied to the experimental data, revealing the suitability of the linear damage accumulation rule under block loadings, at least from a phenomenological point of view.

PREDICTION OF NUMBER OF CYCLES FROM FATIGUE TEST CONDITIONS AND TRANSVERSE CRACK DENSITY OF CFRP CROSS-PLY LAMINATES

In the present paper, we proposed a methodology that can predict the number of applied load cycles in tension-tension fatigue test of CFRP laminates from microscopic damages and test conditions. It is difficult to predict the fracture of CFRP laminates and to estimate the remaining life of CFRP laminates for ensuring the long-term reliability of the CFRP components because the fracture process of CFRP laminates is quite complex. The damage process of CFRP consists of various microscopic damage such as matrix cracks, fiber/matrix interfacial debondings, delamination and so on. In order to quantitatively estimate the remaining life of CFRPs, we focused on the degree of the microscopic damages and relate that to the remaining life of them. The tension-tension fatigue tests of CFRP cross-ply laminates were carried out, and we suspended the tests at arbitrary cycles. When the tests were suspended, we counted the number of transverse cracks occurred on the specimens by a replica method, and measured the stiffness degradation of the specimens. We formulated an equation that can predict the stiffness degradation using fatigue test conditions. The predicted stiffness degradation to the number of cycles using the formula agreed well with the experimental results. The result demonstrated that the formula can predict the number of subjected cycles from fatigue test conditions and transverse crack density.