Probabilistic modelling of cracking in concrete structures

In the framework of the French National Project CEOS and the French ANR Research Project MEFISTO, a simple macroscopic probabilistic approach has been developed by IFSTTAR for cracking analysis of full-scale civil engineering structures. The originality of the approach is to take into account the heterogeneity of the material as the principal factor of influence of cracking processes and responsible for scale effects in concrete structures. The model is therefore thought out to characterise crack patterns. The paper focuses on the bases of this approach, and proposes some comparisons between experimental and numerical results.