Experimental Study and Extended Finite Element Simulation of Fracture of Self-Compacting Rubberized Concrete

Self-compacting rubberized concrete (SCRC) is a high-performance concrete that can achieve compacting effect by self-gravity without vibration during pouring. Because of its excellent fluidity, homogeneity, and stability, the application of self-compacting concrete in engineering can improve work efficiency and reduce project cost. The effects of loading rate on the fracture behavior of self-compacting concrete were studied in this paper. Three-point bend (TPB) tests were carried out at five loading rates of 1, 0.1, 0.001, 0.0001, and 0.00001 mm/s. The dimensions of the specimens were 100 mm x 100 mm x 400 mm. A precast crack was set in the middle of the specimen with a notch-depth ratio of 0.4. The experimental results show that the peak load on the load-CMOD (crack mouth opening displacement) curve gradually increases with the increase of the loading rate. Although the fracture energy a presented greater dispersion under the loading rate of 1 mm/s, the overall changes were still rising with the increase of the loading rate. Besides studying the softening characteristics of the self-compacting concrete, the constitutive softening curve of the self-compacting concrete was obtained using the bilinear model. Finally, curved three-point bending beams were simulated by using the extended finite element method based on ABAQUS. The fracture process of the self-compacting concrete under different loading conditions was analyzed more intuitively. The simulation results were compared with the experimental results, and the same conclusions were obtained.