Numerical and experimental investigation on the effects of mesostructures on the mechanical behavior and failure pattern in concrete

To quickly and accurately predict the macroscopic mechanical behavior of different types of concrete and find mesostructures with excellent properties, a simple and efficient two-dimensional (2D) numerical mesostructure model of concrete was established and calculated by CalculiX finite element (FE) software. Then, a series of simulations and experiments were performed through the orthogonal design strategy to study the effect of mesostructures on the mechanical behaviors of concretes and to determine the significance ranking of three significant factors consisting of coarse aggregate fraction, porosity, and mortar strength grade at three levels. Furthermore, by comparing the experimental and simulated results, it is verified that the simulation strategy is effective and can be directly used in practice to improve the security of concrete structures.