A comprehensive description for damage of concrete subjected to complex loading

The damage of concrete subjected to multiaxial complex loading involves strong anisotropy due to its highly heterogeneous nature and the geometrically anisotropic characteristic of the microcracks. A comprehensive description of concrete damage is proposed by introducing a fourth-order anisotropic damage tenser. The evolution of damage is assumed to be related to the principal components of the current states of stress and damage. The unilateral effect of damage due to the closure and opening of microcracks is taken into account by introducing projection tensors that are also determined by the current state of stress. The proposed damage model considers the different kinds of damage mechanisms that result in different failure modes and different patterns of microdefects that cause different unilateral effects. This damage model is embedded in a thermomechanically consistent constitutive equation in which hardening and the triaxial compression caused shear-enhanced compaction can also be taken into account. The validity of the proposed model is verified by comparing theoretical and experimental results of plain and steel fiber reinforced concrete subjected to complex triaxial stress histories.