Fatigue damage of high performance concrete through a 2D mesoscopic lattice model

Based on high-resolution digital images of High Performance Concrete (HPC) microstructures, a two-dimensional mesoscopic lattice model which accounts for fatigue damage is proposed. Fatigue damage is introduced by considering the coupled effects of loading cycles and tensile strain on stiffness degradation of microstructural lattice elements under fatigue loading. The ultimate tensile strain is defined as the failure threshold value for microstructural lattice elements. Further, the effects of the lattice element properties (i.e. size and finite element type) and fatigue loading parameters (i.e. stress levels) on the damage mechanisms of the HPC microstructure are investigated and discussed. It is found that lattice truss elements 1 mm long are satisfactory, giving also their smaller computational requirements in comparison to beam counterparts, to investigate fatigue damage in the HPC microstructure. The numerical results of the present model are consistent with experimental observations.