Numerical simulation of shear-critical engineered cementitious composites structural members using a new two-dimensional fixed crack constitutive model

Abstract Engineered cementitious composites (ECC) is a type of cement-based material with superior characteristics including tension strain-hardening and multi-cracking. Experimental researches have been conducted which demonstrate that shear-critical ECC members show much better performance than traditional RC members, including shear walls and coupling beams. However, there still needs a reliable way to simulate the mechanical behaviors of shear-critical ECC structural members. In this study, a new two-dimensional (2D) fixed crack model considering compression softening, confinement effect by stirrups, tension strain-hardening, tension softening, pinching effect, compressive strength degradation due to the principle tensile strain and shear softening of ECC is proposed and implemented in ABAQUS 2017 software. Calculation methods of model parameters are proposed based on material tests. By comparing simulation results with uniaxial and shear panel tests, the accuracy of the proposed constitutive model is validated. Then the modeling strategy of shear-critical structural members are proposed and mesh dependency phenomena are discussed. Finally, various structural members including coupling beams and shear walls are simulated and comparison results demonstrate that the proposed ECC constitutive model has a wide application range with adequate accuracy.