Physically based constitutive modeling of concrete fatigue and practical numerical method for cyclic loading simulation

Abstract Fatigue failure is usually modelled by estimating fatigue lifetime with corresponding S - N curve and fatigue damage accumulation law such as Miner's law. This approach can neither track the stress redistribution induced by fatigue damage nor explain the mechanism of fatigue damage evolution properly. In this paper, a constitutive model for concrete fatigue is developed within the framework of continuum damage mechanics, where fatigue damage can capture the gradual degradation of mechanical performance in concrete. The conventional phenomenologically modelled fatigue damage evolution is built with an explanation on its physical mechanism. Then, in order to increase computational efficiency instead of taking cycle-by-cycle approach to track fatigue damage evolution in FEM simulation, an accelerating numerical scheme based on two temporal scales homogenization is employed to make computational cost acceptable. The simulation results are compared with fatigue experimental results to validate the proposed constitutive model and accelerating numerical scheme.