SCIENCE CHINA

Technological Sciences
Progress of Projects Supported by NSFC• November 2012 Vol.55 No.11: 2971–2980
doi: 10.1007/s11431-012-4983-6

A plastic damage model for concrete structure cracks with

two damage variables
ZHENG FuGang3, WU ZhongRu1, 2, 3*, GU ChongShi1, 2, 3, BAO TengFei1, 2, 3 & HU Jiang3
1
State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China;
2
National Engineering Research Center of Water Resources Efficient Utilization and Engineering Safety, Hohai University,
Nanjing 210098, China;
3
College of Water-conservancy and Hydropower, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China

Received May 22, 2012; accepted June 4, 2012; published online August 12, 2012

Based on the concepts of continuum damage theory, a new plastic damage model for concrete crack failure is developed
through studying the basic damage mechanics. Two damage variables, tensile damage variable for tensile damage and shear
damage variable for compressive damage, are adopted to represent the influence of microscopic damage on material macro-
mechanics properties under tensile and compressive loadings. The yield criteria and flow rule determining the plasticity of
concrete are established in the effective stress space, which is convenient to decouple the damage process from the plastic pro-
cess and calibrate material parameters with experimental results. Meanwhile, the plastic part of the proposed model can be im-
plemented by back-Euler implicit algorithm, and the damage part is explicit. Consequently, there exist robust algorithms for
integrating the constitutive relations using finite element method. Comparison with several experimental results shows that the
model is capable of simulating the nonlinear performance of concrete under multiaxial stress state and can be applied to prac-
tical concrete structures.

concrete, cracks, plastic damage, constitutive relation, damage variable

Citation: Zheng F G, Wu Z R, Gu C S, et al. A plastic damage model for concrete structure cracks with two damage variables. Sci China Tech Sci, 2012, 55:
29712980, doi: 10.1007/s11431-012-4983-6

1 Introduction constitutive relationship of concrete [5–10], is word- widely

Concrete is widely used in various engineering fields due to
its advantages of high compressive strength and strong
adaptability. However, cracks are common in concrete
structures, for instance more than 70% of concrete dams
exist cracks [1–3]. These cracks directly affect the service
life of concrete structures [4].
Many valuable results concerning the concrete properties
about cracks have been obtained using elastoplastic me-
chanics, fracture mechanics and damage mechanics [5–15].
Plasticity, which has been successfully used to analyze the
*Corresponding author (email: zrwu@hhu.edu.cn)
recognized. Though the plastic models are suitable for rep-
resenting the strain-stress characteristics under multiaxial
states in monotonic loading, they fail to address the stiffness
degradation and the unilateral effect [13–15]. Fracture me-
chanics puts emphasis on calculating the driving force on a
crack, propagation rule of cracks and material’s resistance
to fracture. It has been extensively used in engineering
practice for fracture analysis. However, fracture models can
hardly represent the properties of concrete with many
smeared microcracks before the appearance of macrocracks.
Besides, it is difficult to get the precise criterions for con-
crete like fracture toughness, so the fracture mechanics has
limitation to model concrete [16–18]. Based on the theories

© Science China Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012 tech.scichina.com www.springerlink.com
2972 Zheng F G, et al. Sci China Tech Sci
of continuum mechanics and irreversible thermodynamics,
the continuum damage mechanics considers microdefects as
an internal state variable field (damage field), regards the
damage process as energy dissipation, and studies the in-
fluence of microdefect’s evolution on mechanical property
by means of phenomenological method. It models the dam-
age by defining the relationship between nominal stress and
effective stress, and concerns with the evolution law of
damage process on a phenomenological level [19, 20].
Since the continuum damage mechanics was first intro-
duced by Kachanov for creep-related problems in 1958 [21],
it has been applied successfully to the modeling of concrete
[22]. However, the elastic damage models are not available
to describe the inelastic deformations [23, 24].
Plastic damage, combined plasticity with isotropic or an-
isotropic damage to describe the nonlinear response of con-
crete due to irreversible deformations and microcracks, is
the appropriate method for modeling constitutive relation-
ship. Anisotropic damage models for concrete are often too
complex to apply [25–27]. On the other hand, isotropic
damage models are widely used with different types of
combinations with plasticity. One group of models relies on
plasticity formulated in the nominal stress space [28–30],
and another group of models is based on plasticity formu-
lated in the effective stress space [31–33]. Here, nominal
stress is defined as the force divided by the total area, while
effective stress is defined as the force divided by the un-
damaged part of the area. However, all of the aforemen-
tioned damage models have their application limitations.
For instance, in spite of the satisfactory damage results un-
der the cyclic loading, the model proposed by Lee [32] can
hardly address the mechanical properties of concrete under
multiaxial loading with different levels of confinement; on
the contrary, the one-scalar damage models like the model
proposed by Grassla [33] cannot represent the unilateral
effect under cyclic loading.
Aiming at these problems above, this paper presents a
new plastic damage model for concrete with two damage
variables, which satisfies the irreversible thermodynamics.
The two damage variables, a tensile damage variable for
tensile damage and a shear damage variable for compressive
damage, are adopted to describe the damage state of the
concrete. Both the yield function and flow rule are estab-
lished in the effective stress space in order to calibrate ma-
terial parameters with experimental results and separate the
damage process from the plastic process advantageously.
Another advantage of this processing method is that the
damage in stiffness degradation, which originally is coupled
with plasticity, can be separated from the constitutive rela-
tion conveniently. Therefore, the plastic part can be imple-
mented implicitly, and the damage part can be implemented
explicitly. Consequently, there exist robust algorithms for
integrating the constitutive relations, which is convenient
for finite element method. The model predictions agree well
with the experimental results under complex stress condi-
November (2012) Vol.55 No.11
tions, including uniaxial tension, uniaxial compression,
multiaxial compression and cyclic loading.
2 Framework for plastic damage model
According to the concept of continuum damage theory [19],
the stress-strain relation for damage models can be ex-
pressed as follows:
  (1  d )  (1  d ) E0 : (ε  ε p ), (1)
where  is the nominal stress tensor; d is the scalar damage
variable describing the degradation of elastic stiffness; E0 is
the initial (undamaged) elastic stiffness matrix; ε is the total
strain; εp is the plastic strain including the irreversible de-
formation caused by microcracks;  is the effective stress
tensor. It can be concluded that plastic damage model con-
tains two aspects: plastic process and damage process. They
are discussed in the following sections respectively.
2.1 Plastic process
Effective stress is more representative when damage occurs
because it reflects the true stress on the effective stress area.
On the other hand, according to the research result [33], the
damage model based on the nominal stress has a severe re-
striction to meet the local uniqueness condition than that
based on the effective stress. Therefore, the effective con-
figuration is adopted to facilitate the plastic process. The
plasticity of model is described by the yield function, the
flow rule, the evolution law for plastic hardening variable
and the loading-unloading conditions:
F p ( ,  p )  f p ( )  k p ( p ),
G( ,  p )
ε p   ,
 (2)
κ p   H p ( , κ p , x p ),
F p0 , 0 ,  F p  0 ,
where F p is the yield function; f p is the equivalent stress; kp
is the equivalent yield stress; p is the plastic hardening varia-
ble;  is the plastic multiplier; G is the plastic potential; Hp
is the function relating the rate of plastic hardening variable
to the plastic multiplier; xp is the hardening ductility.
In the following subsequent sections, the basic compo-
nents of plastic are specified in detail.
2.1.1 Yield condition
A yield function suitable for multiaxial stress states is
adopted, which was first proposed by Etse and Willam in
1994 [8], and later exploited by Menétry and Willam [9],
Grassl and Lundgren [10]. The yield function is established
in terms of cylindrical coordinates in the principal effective
stress space (Haigh Westergaard coordinates). The three
 Zheng F G, et al. Sci China Tech Sci November (2012) Vol.55 No.11 2973

coordinates: hydrostatic effective stress invariant  , devi-

atoric effective stress invariant  , and Lode angle  are
defined as
I1
  , I1  σ : δ   ij  ij ,
3
1 1
  2J2 , J2  S : S  Sij Sij， (3)
2 2
1 3 3 J  1 1
  arccos  3
3/ 2 

, J 3  S 3 : δ  Sij S jk S ki ,
3  2 J 2  3 3

where S  σ  δI1 / 3 indicates the deviatoric effective

stress tensor.
The yield function is given as
2
 3   r   2
F p
 m0 qh2     qh , (4)
 2 f   6 f c 3 f c 
 c 
Figure 1 The evolution of yield surface in deviatoric plane with different
where f c is the uniaxial compressive strength; m0 is the values of elliptic function.

friction parameter; r is the elliptic function; qh is the nor-

malized strength parameter. The shape of yield surface in
deviatoric section changes from triangular shapes at low
confinement to almost circular shapes at high confinement,
controlled by the elliptic function r ( , e) :

4(1  e2 ) cos2   (2e  1)2

r , (5)
2(1  e2 ) cos   (2e  1) 4(1  e2 ) cos2   5e2  4e

where e is the eccentricity parameter. The value of eccen-

tricity parameter e is required to be 0e1.In the case of
e  1, r ( ,1)  1 and the shape of yield surface in devia-
toric section becomes circular with the influence of the
Lode angle disappearing. For e  0.5, r ( ,1)  2cos ,
which forms a triangle in the deviatoric section as shown in Figure 2 The evolution of tensile and compressive meridians with dif-
Figure 1. Eccentricity parameter e can be evaluated by ferent values of friction parameter.

1 f t f b2  f c2
e ,   , (6) defined as
2  f b f c2  f t 2
qh  R( )qt  (1  R( ))qc , (8)
where f t is the uniaxial tensile strength; f b is the equibi-
axial compressive strength. where qt and qc are the equivalent tensile and compressive
The shape of yield surface in meridional section is para- strength invariants, respectively; R( ) is the stress weight
bolic, controlled by friction parameter m0, as shown in Fig- factor representing a measure of the ratio between tensile
ure 2. The value of m0 can be obtained by and compressive stresses, and can be evaluated as follows:

f c2  f t 2 e 0, if (ˆ  0),

m0  3 . (7)  3
fc f t 1  e 
R( )   
i
i 1
The normalized strength parameter qh controls the do-  3 , otherwise,
(9)
main of the yield surface, which means that qh determines   i
the evolution of the maximum size of the elastic domain in  i 1
deviatoric section and meridional section, as presented in 1
 i  ( i   i ),
Figure 3. Considering the multiaxial stress states, qh is 2
2974 Zheng F G, et al. Sci China Tech Sci November (2012) Vol.55 No.11

Figure 3 The evolution of yield surface during hardening. (a) Yield surfaces in meridional section; (b) yield surfaces in deviatoric section.

where  i is the principle stress; ̂ is the principle stress   / 3  ft / 3 

mQ  AQ BQ exp   , (11)
tensor.  BQ f c
 
Generally speaking, qt=1, on the assumption that con-
crete doesn’t exhibit yield hardening under tension, while where AQ and BQ are model parameters calibrated from ex-
f c 0 f c  qc 0qc1, where f c0 is the initial yield strength. periments. In the case of lack of experiment results, the
values of model parameters can be evaluated by the follow-
Note that under the uniaxial compression, which indi-
ing equations:
cates   0 and   π 3, we can obtain r  1,  
f t m0
 1.5 and    3 . Consequently, the yield func- AQ  3  ,
fc 2
tion is reduced as F p  ( / f c )2  qc2 , which means that (12)
(1  f t / f c ) / 3
qc describes the yield stress in uniaxial compression. Under BQ  ,
ln AQ  ln(2 Df  1)  ln(3  m0 / 2)  ln( Df  1)
the uniaxial tension, which indicates   0 and   0,
we can obtain r  1 e ,   1.5 and    3 . where Df is the ratio between lateral and axial plastic rates,
and generally chosen as Df =0.85.
Therefore, the yield function changes into
2
  f 2  ft2  2.1.3 Evolution of hardening variable
F    c
p
 1. It is obvious that concrete
The evolution law for the hardening variable under multi-
 fc  fc f t fc
axial stress is expressed as follows:
yields when   f t .
(1  R(σ ))  ˆmin
p
κ p  , (13)
2.1.2 Flow rule x p ( h )
In order to describe the inelastic deformation capacity under
where ˆmin
p
is the minimum eigenvalue of the plastic strain
multiaxial stress states, the plastic potential is based on a
volumetric modification of the yield function proposed by rate tensor i.e. the maximum principal compressive strain
Etse. The deviatoric component of the plastic strain rate rate; R(σ ) is the stress weight factor determined by eq. (7);
follows an associated flow rule, while the volumetric com- xp is the hardening ductility defining the peal value of
ponent obeys a nonassociated flow rule. The plastic poten- equivalent plastic strain when the failure envelope is
tial has the format as reached, which can be evaluated as a polynomial:
2 x p ( h )  Ah h2  Bh h  Ch , (14)
 3   m r 
G (σ , κ p )    qh2  0  mQ  . (10)
 2 f   6f  where Ah, Bh and Ch are model parameters calibrated from
 c   c 
compressive experiments under different levels of confine-
The flow direction is controlled by ment;  h describes the confinement level:
 Zheng F G, et al. Sci China Tech Sci November (2012) Vol.55 No.11 2975

 max
  bles are adopted, one tensile damage variable for tension
h   , (15)
expressed as κ td , one shear damage variable for compres-
3 fc 3 fc
sion expressed as κcd . So the damage variables can be
 is the stress in the direction of maximum prin-
where  max
written as
cipal compressive strain rate.
Assuming that ˆmax
p
 ˆ1ˆ2ˆ3  ˆmin
p
, the following κ d  [ td  td ]T . (19)
form to obtain The damage part of the model is described by the dam-
age loading function, the evolution of damage variables, the
G(σˆ )
εˆ p  [ˆ1 ˆ2 ˆ3 ]T   . (16) evolution law of scalar damage variable, and the loading-
σˆ unloading conditions:
By substitution of eq. (16) into eq. (13), the expression of
F d (ε, κ d )  f d (ε)  k d (κ d ),
Hp in eq. (2) can be obtained as
κ d   H d (σ , κ d ),
 1  R(σ )  G(σˆ ) (20)
H p  0 0  . (17) d  d (d t , d c ),
 x p  σˆ
F d0, 0,  F d  0,
2.1.4 Isotropic hardening law where F d is the damage loading function; f d is the equiva-
The normalized strength parameter qh controls the size of lent strain; kd is the equivalent damage threshold; κ d is the
yield surface with the variable qc. Its equivalent compres- damage variable vector; Hd is the function relating the rate
sive strength invariant qc can be expressed as a monoton- of damage variables and plastic multiplier; dt and dc are the
ically increasing function of the hardening variable κp: scalar degradation variables of tension and compression,
q  (1  qc 0 ) p [( p )2  3 p  3], if  p  1, respectively. The detail information of damage variable and
qc =  c 0 (18) scalar damage variable are discussed as follows.
1, if  p1.
2.2.1 Evolution of damage variable
The evolution of hardening ductility measure xp and
According to the experimental results [13–15], microcracks
equivalent compressive strength invariant qc under different
usually occur in the direction of maximum plastic strain rate.
levels of confinement is show in Figure 4.
Therefore, it is reasonable that the rates of damage variables
are characterized by the maximum equivalent principle
2.2 Damage process plastic strain rates of tension and compression:
It is difficult to represent the damage states effectively for td  R(σ )ˆmax
p
,
concrete by one single damage variable because of the uni- (21)
lateral effect under cyclic loading and the different me- cd  (1  R(σ ))ˆmin
p
.
chanical responses under tensile damage and compressive
damage. In order to account for the different damage states By substituting eq. (16) into eq. (21), the evolution law
of concrete in tension and compression, two damage varia- of damage variables can be obtained in terms of

0, if qh  1,
κ d   d p (22)
 h  εˆ , if qh  1,

 R (σ ) 0 0 
where hd   . Combined with eq. (20),
 0 0 1  R(σ ) 
G(σˆ )
the expression of H d is H d  hd  .
σˆ

2.2.2 Evolution of scalar damage variable

Modified by the exponent format proposed by Mazars [34],
the evolution laws of tensile degradation variable and shear
degradation variable are defined as follows:
1  A A
Figure 4 The evolution of hardening ductility and compressive strength d  1   , (23)
under different levels of confinement. 1   /  exp( B d / f )
d f
2976 Zheng F G, et al. Sci China Tech Sci November (2012) Vol.55 No.11

where   t , c indicates the tensile and compressive part and damage part of the model can be implemented sep-
arately. Based on the simulating platform of ABAQUS, a
states, respectively; A and B are the damage parameters
user subroutine is developed using the redeveloping tech-
calibrated from experiments; f is the peak value of strain nique of UMAT. The implementation processes of plastic
when damage occurs. and damage are introduced as follows.
Under cyclic loading between tension and compression,
the degradation of the stiffness represents unilateral effect 3.1 Plastic part
because of the opening and closing of microcracks. Two
stiffness recovery coefficients are adopted to describe dif- Backward Euler implicit integration is used for plasticity
ferent stiffness recovery effects associated with stress re- implementation, which includes two aspects: elastic predic-
versals of tension and compression. The scalar damage var- tor and plastic correction. The unknown variables between
iable is assumed as loading steps n1 and n are updated as follows:
d  1  (1  sc d t )(1  st d c ), (24) G
ε(pn)  ε(pn 1)  ( n ) ,
σ ( n )
where st and sc represent stiffness recovery effects of ten-
sion and compression associated with stress reversals, re-  (pn )   (pn 1)  ( n) H p , (26)
spectively. They are defined as σ( n)  E0 : (ε( n)  ε(pn) ),
sc  1   c [1  R(ˆ1 )], st  1  t R(ˆ1 ), (25) F( pn )  F p (σ( n ) ,  (pn ) ).

where ςc and ςt are material parameters controlling the re- Eqs. (26) are a nonlinear function with multiple variables.
covery of the tensile and compressive stiffness upon load Therefore, Newton-Raphson iterative method is adopted for
reversal, and take values in [0,1]. R(ˆ )  ˆ ˆ when the integration by means of the following steps, and the
1 1 1
flow diagram is shown in Figure 6.
the first effective principle stress is not zero. The effluence 1) Initialization:
of stiffness recovery coefficient on stiffness changes where
the load changing from tension to compression is shown in k  0, ((0)
n )  0, ε( n )  ε( n 1) ,  ( n )   ( n 1) .
p(0) p p (0) p

Figure 5.
It is worthwhile to illustrate that the proposed plastic 2) Compute elastic predictor: σ(trn)  E0 : (ε( n)  ε(pn(0)
) ).

damage model for concrete satisfies the thermodynamic law. 3) Check the yield condition: F( p(tr
n)
)
 F p (σ (trn) ,  (pn(0)
) ).
The verification process can be referred to refs [32, 33], and
is not repeated here. If F( p(tr)
n)  TOLF, then calculation converges, indicating

3 Numerical implementation

According to the method proposed in this paper, the plastic

Figure 5 Effluence of the compression stiffness recovery parameter on

stiffness recovery. Figure 6 Flow diagram of numerical implementation.
 Zheng F G, et al. Sci China Tech Sci November (2012) Vol.55 No.11 2977

that the stress is in the elastic domain; otherwise go to 4). that of the plastic part since  is known after the end of
4) Initial iteration: plastic analysis. So the calculation process of damage part
F p qc p between steps n1 and n can be treated efficiently as
n )  (1  R(σ ( n ) ))
H ((1) tr
H ,
qc  p κ (dn )  κ (dn 1)  ( n) H d ,
p(tr)
F d( n )  d (κ (dn ) ).
((1)
n) 
( n)
,
F p
G
E0  H ((1)
n) Finally, the nominal stress is computed as
σ (trn ) σ(trn )
G σ( n)  (1  d( n ) )σ ( n) . (27)
n )  σ ( n )  ( n ) E 0
σ((1) tr (1)
,
σ(trn )
 (p(1)
n )   ( n )  ( n ) H ,
p(0) (1) p
4 Model verification
G
n )  ε( n )  ( n )
(1)
ε(p(1) p(0)
.
σ (trn ) To verify the rationality and applicability of the proposed
model, the constitutive responses are compared to the ex-
5) Newton-Raphson iteration: perimental results of various loading conditions of concrete,
① Stress iteration: including uniaxial tension and compression, biaxial com-
G pression, triaxial compression, and cyclic loading. The cor-
r  σ ((nk))  σ (trn)  ((nk)) E0 , responding mechanical parameters are presented in Table 1
σ ((nk))
and the compared results are discussed respectively.
2 G
Q  I  ((nk)) E0 ,
(σ((nk)) )2 4.1 Uniaxial tensile test
F qc p p
The experimental results of uniaxial tensile test [13] are
H ((nk))  (1  R(σ((nk)) )) H ,
qc  p compared with the numerical predictions, as shown in Fig-
F p 1 ure 7. It can be observed that the predictions by the pro-
F( pn() k )  Q r posed model agree well with the experimental data. The
σ((nk))
((nk))  , model can represent the stress strain relation under uniaxial
F p 1 G
Q E0  H ((nk)) tension effectively.
σ (trn) σ(trn )
 2 G  4.2 Uniaxial compressive test
 σ((nk))  Q 1  r  ((nk)) E0  .
 (σ((nk)) )2
  The comparison between the numerical predictions and the
② Check the convergence conditions. If r  TOLR experimental results under uniaxial compression [14] is
presented in Figure 8. As shown in Figure 8, the numerical
and F( p(
n)
k)
 TOLF , go to 6); otherwise go to ③. simulation agrees well with the result of the experimental
③ Update internal variables: test, either in the hardening or in softening regimes.

((nk)1)  ((nk))  ((nk)) ,

4.3 Biaxial compressive test
σ ((nk)1)  σ((nk))   σ ((nk)) ,
The model ability under biaxial compression is validated by
G
ε(pn()k 1)  ε(pn()k )  ((nk)) , comparing the corresponding experiment reported by Kup-
σ((nk)) fer in 1969 [35]. The experimental results with stress ratios
 (pn()k 1)   (pn()k )  ((nk)) H p . of 1/0 and 1/1 are plotted against the numerical perdi-
tions in Figure 9. A good agreement with experimental re-
④ k=k+1, return to ①. sults is obtained as shown in Figure 9. Both strength en-
6) Update final results: hancement and lateral strain are well reproduced.
( n )  ((nk)) , σ( n )  σ((nk)) , ε(pn )  ε(pn()k ) ,  (pn )   (pn()k ) .
4.4 Triaxial compressive test
7) End.
The model response under triaxial compression must be
checked since concrete structures are usually exposed to
3.2 Damage part
triaxial loadings. Experiment study on the concrete response
The numerical implement of the damage part is easier than under triaxial loading was carried out by Imran with lateral
2978 Zheng F G, et al. Sci China Tech Sci November (2012) Vol.55 No.11

Table 1 Model parameters

Test kind E (GPa) v fc (MPa) fc0 (MPa) ft (MPa) Ah Bh Ch At Bt Ac Bc
Uniaxial tension 31 0.2 40  3.41    0.366 5.091  
Uniaxial compression 31 0.2 28 15.4 2.8   0.0012   1.995 0.553
Biaxial compression 31 0.15 32.8 22 3.3 0.0025 0.0026 0.00117   2.696 0.632
Triaxial compression 30 0.15 47.4 18 4.74 0.027 0.0813 0.00122   1.571 0.343
Cyclic tension 31 0.2 40  3.41    0.366 5.091  
Cyclic compression 31 0.2 28 15.4 2.8   0.0012   1.995 0.553
Cyclic tension-compression 39 0.18 47  3.2    0.533 0.088  

Figure 9 The model responses in biaxial compression compared to ex-

perimental results.

4.5 Cyclic loading tests

Figure 7 The model responses in uniaxial tension compared to experi-
mental results.
Concrete structures often suffer the cyclic loading in their
service processes. Therefore, the cyclic uniaxial tensile test
[13], the cyclic compressive test [14] and cyclic tensile-
compressive test [37] were reproduced numerically to
demonstrate the capability of the proposed model by com-
parison, as shown in Figures 1113. The following conclu-
sions can be observed: 1) Experimental results including
softening envelop curve, stiffness degradation and devel-
opment of inelastic strain are well reflected by the proposed
model under both cyclic tension and compression. 2) There
exist certain discrepancies in modeling cyclic tensile-com-
pressive load condition. The main reason is that it is diffi-
cult to model such a discrete phenomenon by a continuum
damage model.

Figure 8 The model responses in uniaxial compression compared to

experimental results.

confinement varying from 043 MPa in 1996 [36]. The

comparison between model predictions and experiment re-
sults is shown in Figure 10. It can be concluded that not
only the variation of ultimate strength but also the ductility
under high confinement pressures are represented well in
this model. Meanwhile certain discrepancies are found in
the comparison with the lateral strain but accurate results
could be obtained by means of considering the variation of Figure 10 The model responses in triaxial compression compared to
Poisson’s ratio during the material damage process. experimental results.
 Zheng F G, et al. Sci China Tech Sci November (2012) Vol.55 No.11 2979

mechanics, this paper presents a plastic damage model for

Figure 11 The model responses in cyclic tension compared to experi-
mental results.
concrete structure cracks with two damage variables, which
can describe the nonlinear constitutive relation of concrete
reasonably. The plastic part is established in the effective
stress space, while softening is controlled by damage.
Therefore, the plastic part can be implemented by back-
Euler implicit algorithm and the damage part can be imple-
mented explicitly, which is convenient to numeral integra-
tion. The numerical predictions of the proposed model are
compared with several experimental results, and the fol-
lowing conclusions are obtained.
1) The plastic damage model for concrete structure
cracks proposed in this paper is able to represent the
stress-strain relation and nonlinear properties of concrete
such as isotropic hardening, softening and stiffness degra-
dation under complex load conditions.
2) The adopted yield criterion established in the cylin-
drical coordinates can simulate the enhancement of ultimate
strength and ductility under biaxial or triaxial stress state.
3) The tensile damage variable for tensile damage and
the shear damage variable for compressive damage pro-
posed in this paper can effectively represent the unilateral
effect and stiffness recovery under cyclic loading. The evo-
lution of damage is derived from equivalent plastic strain
instead of plastic energy to avoid the problem of plastic
work decreasing in the case of kinematic hardening.
4) The numerical predictions are close to the experi-
mental results, indicating that the proposed model is appli-
cable. Moreover, the proposed model can be applied to non-
linear analysis of practical concrete structures.

Figure 12 The model responses in cyclic compression compared to ex-

perimental results. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of
China (Grant Nos. 51139001, 51179066, 51079046), the Program for New
Century Excellent Talents in University (Grant Nos. NCET-11-0628,
NCET-10-0359), the Special Fund of State Key Laboratory of China
(Grant Nos. 2009586012, 2009586912, 2010585212) and the Fundamental
Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant Nos. 2010B20414,
2010B01414, 2010B14114).

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