Cement and Concrete Research 109 (2018) 90–102

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Cement and Concrete Research

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cemconres

HPC simulations of alkali-silica reaction-induced damage: Influence of T

alkali-silica gel properties
Aurelia I. Cuba Ramosa, Clément Roux-Langloisb, Cyrille F. Dunantc, Mauro Corradod,
Jean-François Molinaria,*
a
Civil Engineering Institute, Materials Science and Engineering Institute, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Station 18, Lausanne CH-1015, Switzerland
b
Glass and Mechanics Department, Institute of Physics, UMR UR1-CNRS 6251, University of Rennes 1, Campus de Beaulieu, 35042 Rennes Cedex, France
c
Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, United Kingdom
d
Department of Structural, Geotechnical and Building Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, Torino 10129, Italy

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The alkali-silica reaction (ASR), a common cause of internal concrete degradation, is characterized by the for-
Alkali-silica-reaction mation of hydrophilic gel pockets inside the aggregates. These gel pockets swell by absorbing water, thus causing
High-performance computing expansion and cracking of the concrete. In this work we have used high-performance computing simulations to
GFEM/XFEM investigate how the various gel properties, such as the Young's modulus, influence the mechanical degradation
Sequentially linear analysis
process of ASR. It is found that the relationship between the concrete expansion and the loss of elastic modulus is
solely affected by the density of gel pockets and does not depend on the material properties of the gel. The ASR
model developed in this work, however, overestimates the loss of elastic modulus. This can be explained by the
fact that the visco-elasticity of the cement paste and the load-bearing capacity of the ASR-induced cracks are not
considered in the model.

1. Introduction

The alkali-silica reaction is a type of concrete deterioration that has

been observed in concrete structures all over the world. In particular for
large concrete dams ASR is a major concern because those structures
are designed for a long service life and repairs are expensive. For ASR to
occur the aggregates in the concrete must contain amorphous silica
(silicon dioxide SiO2). This amorphous silica is distributed either uni-
formly throughout the aggregates or randomly in the form of small
reactive particles. The chemical degradation process, which is highly
temperature dependent, starts with the breakdown of the siloxane into
silanol compounds due to the presence of hydroxide ions:
(1)
Subsequently, the alkali ions (M+) from the concrete pore solution,
i.e. sodium or potassium, penetrate the silanol compounds to form a
hydrophilic gel, which starts swelling as it adsorbs water:
(2)
Aggregates with a uniform distribution of amorphous silica are fast-
reacting aggregates because the pore solution can directly reach the
reactive material close to the surface of the aggregate. The gel typically
forms as a spherical rim around the aggregate. On the other hand, in
aggregates with a non-uniform amorphous silica distribution, which are
more frequently encountered, only few reactive particles are close to
the surface of the aggregate. Therefore, these aggregates react more
slowly because the pore solution needs time to diffuse deeper into the
aggregate to attack also the reactive particles away from the surface.
The chemical composition and the structure of the ASR gel vary ac-
cording to the alkalis involved in the reaction and depend on whether
the gel has formed close to the surface or within the aggregate. A de-
tailed summary on the factors that influence the ASR gel composition
can be found in [1]. Because the gel is confined by its surroundings
(aggregate or cement paste) its expansion induces internal pressures in
the structure, which lead to macroscopic expansion and, eventually,
cracking. Numerical or analytical models for ASR are required to assess

*
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jean-francois.molinari@epfl.ch (J.-F. Molinari).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cemconres.2018.03.020
Received 5 November 2017; Received in revised form 12 March 2018; Accepted 28 March 2018
Available online 22 April 2018
0008-8846/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A.I. Cuba Ramos et al.
the stress state inside an ASR-affected structure and to simulate the
long-term evolution of the macroscopic consequences of ASR. These
models must be able to correctly predict the amount of damage and
macroscopic expansion caused by a given amount of gel, i.e. a given
stage of chemical reaction.
The fact that ASR is a concern for large structures, such as dams, has
naturally motivated the development of macro-scale models, which
address the consequences of ASR directly at the structural scale of
concrete. In macro-scale models concrete is considered as a homo-
geneous material, which means that the underlying meso-structure,
consisting of aggregates and the cement paste, is not resolved. This
simplified material description is required because an explicit re-
presentation of the aggregates and the cement paste at this scale would
yield simulations too large in size, even for modern computer clusters.
The macroscopic constitutive laws are derived either through fitting of
experimental data (e.g. [2-5]) or from homogenization principles (e.g.
[6-13]), which implicitly account for the underlying meso-structure.
Because macro-scale models do not capture the origin of the macro-
scopic concrete deterioration, that is a change in the underlying con-
crete meso-structure, they rely on assumptions regarding the link be-
tween macroscopic damage and chemical reaction. The objective of
studying the physical mechanisms of the ASR-induced damage has
therefore led more recently to the development of meso- and micro-
scale models. Most of the models at these scales are based on the as-
sumption that the ASR gel forms at the surface of the aggregates, which
causes cracking only in the interfacial transition zone (ITZ) and the
cement matrix [14-23]. They are thus not applicable to the more
common slow-reacting aggregates. Models, which capture the ex-
pansive gel sites within slow-reacting aggregates have been developed
in [24-29]. These models allow to analyze the physics of the ASR de-
gradation process in concrete with slow-reacting aggregates but their
main drawback is a high computational cost. Due to this limitation
often only the coarse aggregates are explicitly considered in the simu-
lations. Moreover, the use of these models requires knowledge on the
mechanical properties of the gel and the distribution of reactive ma-
terial inside the aggregates. Determining these parameters experimen-
tally is intricate and cannot be done for every reactive concrete at hand.
Values for the gel parameters, available in literature, show a wide
spread. This can be explained by differences in the chemical composi-
tion of the gels, which were analyzed. Consequently, meso-scale ASR
models for slow-reacting aggregates rely on assumptions regarding the
gel properties and the number and distribution of reactive sites. It is,
however, not clear how the choice of values for these parameters in-
fluences the simulation results. To the best of our knowledge parametric
studies, which would allow to analyze the sensitivity of these models to
variations in the gel input parameters, have not been carried out so far.
This is due to the fact that the execution of such large sets of simula-
tions on a single machine is computationally unfeasible.
In this paper we present, to the best of our knowledge for the first
time, a systematic study on the influence of the different gel input
parameters for ASR simulations of concrete with slow-reacting ag-
gregates. For this purpose an ASR meso-scale model, in which the re-
active sites are explicitly considered, has been implemented in the
parallel open-source finite element library Akantu [30]. This develop-
ment allows the execution of high-performance computing simulations
at the meso-scale of concrete. The choice of algorithms, which were
used for the implementation of the ASR model, is innovative and aims
at maximizing code efficiency and robustness. All simulations presented
in this paper have been carried out on modern commodity clusters. The
results of the simulations show an unprecedented level of detail and
provide insight on how macroscopic expansion and damage are linked
to gel properties and its distribution. Moreover, in this work the main
influencing parameters in ASR meso-scale simulations are identified
and the importance of resolving the reactive sites inside the aggregates
is discussed.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: In Section 2 we
91
Cement and Concrete Research 109 (2018) 90–102
discuss the motivation and problem formulation of the ASR model de-
veloped here. This is followed by Section 3, in which a description of
the adopted generalized finite element method (GFEM), the damage
algorithm, and the parallel implementation with MPI is given. Subse-
quently, in Section 4 we explain how the numerical ASR samples were
generated and present the results of the parametric studies. Finally,
conclusions and outlook are provided in Section 5.
2. ASR model
2.1. Link with experimental observations
As mentioned in the introduction of this paper the development of
the alkali-silica reaction in concrete depends on a large number of
chemical and mechanical parameters, such as temperature, aggregate
type and external loads. Some of these parameters influence the reac-
tion kinetics, others the mechanical manifestations, i.e. the expansion
and damage pattern. In all cases localized gel pockets start forming and
cause cracks that initiate around these pockets. Trying to capture both,
the chemical degradation process and the mechanical manifestation, in
a single simulation calls for extremely complex multi-scale multi-phy-
sics models. However, the experimental studies from Ben Haha [31]
and Dunant [26] have shown that, for unrestrained concrete, there
exists a unique relationship between degree of reaction and macro-
scopic expansion, which does not depend on the cure temperature or
the alkali level of the pore solution. In these studies the degree of re-
action was measured on SEM cross-sectional images of ASR samples and
defined as percentage of aggregate surface occupied by reacted mate-
rial, i.e. gel and cracks. Note that Ben Haha's and Dunant's definition of
the degree of reaction differs from the more common definition as
amount of gel. In order to emphasize this distinction, in the remainder
of this paper the term degree of degradation is used to refer to Ben Haha's
and Dunant's definition of the degree of reaction. The fact that the
degree of degradation and the macroscopic expansion are uniquely
related, implies that it is possible to model the mechanical con-
sequences of ASR independently of the chemical degradation process. A
finite element (FE) model based on this assumption, in which the ex-
pansive gel pockets are explicitly considered, was developed in [26]. In
this work we adopt the concept of accounting for the chemical con-
sequences of ASR via the presence of localized gel pockets expanding
inside the aggregates.
2.2. Problem formulation
In order to formulate the strong form of the mechanical ASR pro-
blem, from which the weak form will subsequently be derived, we now
consider the two-dimensional domain Ω ⊂ 2 depicted in Fig. 1. This
domain represents a body of ASR-affected concrete. The closure of Ω is
denoted by Ω and the domain is composed of three mutually exclusive
phases: the cement paste ΩC, the aggregates ΩA, and the gel pockets ΩG.
The cement paste/aggregate, cement paste/gel, and aggregate/gel in-
terfaces are denoted by ΓC/A, ΓC/G, and ΓA/G, respectively and the po-
sition vector of a material point is given by x = xiei, where ei are the
basis vectors in ℝ2. The domain is bounded by the Dirichlet boundary
Γu with prescribed displacements u and the Neumann boundary Γt with
prescribed tractions t . The following definitions hold:
Γ = Γu ∪ Γt , (3)
Γu ∩ Γt = ∅. (4)
Let σ and ε denote the Cauchy stress tensor and the infinitesimal
strain tensor, respectively. The latter is defined as
1
ε = ∇S u = (∇u + ∇uT ),
2 (5)
where u is the displacement field. A constant eigenstrain distribution
A.I. Cuba Ramos et al.
Fig. 1. Schematic representation of the problem domain Ω, which represents a
body of ASR-affected concrete and is composed of three mutually exclusive
phases: cement paste ΩC, aggregates ΩA and gel pockets ΩG. The domain
boundary Γ is divided into two parts: the Dirichlet boundary Γu with imposed
displacements and the Neumann boundary Γt with imposed tractions t . The
outward unit normal of Γ is denoted by n and x is the position vector of material
point in Ω.
εeig is acting inside ΩG. This non-elastic strain prevails due to the phase
transformation of aggregate material into gel material of lower density
and is zero in Ω∖Ω G. Consequently, the total strain ε can be decom-
posed as follows:
ε = ε el + ε eig .
The Cauchy stress depends only on the elastic part of the strain, i.e.
σ = σ (ε el ) . Therefore, the strong form of the boundary value problem
reads
∇⋅σ = 0 in ΩC , ΩA , ΩG ,
σn = t on Γt ,
u=u on Γu ,
where n is the outward unit normal to Γ and the continuity conditions
along the material interfaces are
⟦σn⟧ = 0 on ΓC / A , ΓC / G , ΓA / G , (10)
⟦u⟧ = 0 on ΓC / A , ΓC / G , ΓA / G . (11)
Given the function spaces U (Ω): ={u: u|Γu = u } ⊂ H1 (Ω) and
V (Ω): ={v: v|Γu = 0 } ⊂ H1 (Ω) for the trial and the test solutions, where
ℋ1 is the first-order Hilbertian-Sobolev space, the weak form in Eqs.
(7)–(9) can be stated as follows: Find u ∈ U and v ∈ V such that
∫Ω σ (u): ε (v) dΩ = ∫Γ t
t ⋅v dΓ.
(12)
In order to solve Eq. (12) constitutive laws for the three material
phases, linking σ and εel, are required. In the following it is assumed
that the gel is linear elastic with an elasticity tensor ℂG. Therefore, the
stress inside the gel pockets can be computed as
σ =  G ε el in ΩG . (13)
The aggregates and the cement paste are modeled as quasi-brittle
materials as is explained in Section 3.2.
3. Numerical implementation
3.1. Generalized finite element formulation
Following the approach in [26], a generalized finite element
Cement and Concrete Research 109 (2018) 90–102
method is used in order to discretize the weak form stated in Eq. (12).
This choice is motivated by the fact that the gel pockets are very small
in size and grow in every step of the analysis, which makes the use of FE
meshes that conform to the gel pocket boundaries unfeasible. Conse-
quently, the problem domain Ω is subdivided into nel finite elements ωi ,
which do not need to align with ΓC/G or ΓA/G and the following equa-
tions apply:
Ω ≈ Ωh = ∪in=el1 ωi , (14)
ωi ∩ ωj = ∅ ∀ i ≠ j. (15)
The type of GFEM, which is used in this work, is the interface-en-
riched GFEM (IGFEM) proposed in [32,33]. This method has been de-
veloped for the treatment of weak discontinuities and is applied here for
the first time to the modeling of gel pocket growth in ASR simulations.
The main difference of the IGFEM, compared to more conventional
GFEM formulations, is that the local enrichments are applied on so-
called interface nodes rather than on original nodes of the mesh. These
new nodes are created by intersecting the material interface with the
element edges. The use of this method is advantageous due to a lower
computational cost compared to a more standard GFEM formulation
and the straightforward implementation. Moreover, because the en-
richment functions vanish at the standard nodes of the FE mesh no
special treatment for the imposition of Dirichlet boundary conditions on
enriched elements is required. In the following U h ⊂ U and V h ⊂ V
will denote the function spaces for the IGFEM approximations of the
trial and the test functions, respectively. Because the IGFEM is a Ga-
lerkin method it further follows that U h = V h . The IGFEM approx-
imation of the displacement field is
n nen
(6) uh (x ) = ∑ Ni (x ) Ui + ∑ Ψi (x ) αi .
i=1 i=1
   
standard FE part enriched part (16)
The first term in Eq. (16) is the standard FE part of the approx-
imation, where n are the standard nodes in the mesh, Ni(x) are the
(7)
Lagrangian shape functions and Ui are the standard degrees of freedom
(8) (dofs). Similarly, the second term in Eq. (16) is the enriched part of the
approximation, where nen are the interface nodes, Ψi(x) are the IGFEM
(9)
enrichment functions and αi are the enriched degrees of freedom.
3.2. Damage algorithm
The progress of ASR at the meso-scale is characterized by the in-
itiation and propagation of cracks, which form around the gel pockets
inside the aggregates and eventually spread into the cement paste.
Capturing this complex crack network numerically is challenging be-
cause both, the aggregate and the cement paste, are quasi-brittle. The
sharp softening behavior of these materials results in a negative tangent
stiffness, which makes classical non-linear finite element computations
prone to numerical instabilities. These computations involve Newton-
Raphson iterations during which load or displacement increments are
applied. Even if these increments are very small they might invoke a
large increment of damage over big parts of the specimen and the so-
lution is likely to diverge as shown for instance in [34]. Consequently,
in this work the sequentially linear analysis (SLA), an alternative ap-
proach for damage modeling, is applied. This approach circumvents the
stability issues encountered in the classical non-linear finite element
analysis. The SLA was originally proposed in [35] and further devel-
oped in [36-38]. The underlying assumption of this method is that the
material fails locally always under tension with subsequent softening.
During each step of the simulation the load is applied in small incre-
ments, such that for each applied load increment the maximum prin-
ciple tensile stress in exactly one integration point reaches the tensile
strength and all the other integration points remain below their critical
stress. Damage is then incremented only at the critical integration point
92
A.I. Cuba Ramos et al.
Fig. 2. Characteristic saw-tooth diagram obtained with SLA consisting of N
consecutive linear elastic computations: Ei and σc,i denote the Young's modulus
and the tensile strength after the i-th reduction step. The grey-shaded area,
N −1
which can be computed as ∑i = 0 Ai , corresponds to the SLA approximation of
the fracture energy Gf,eff divided by the crack bandwidth wc. The dashed line
represents the original tensile softening curve.
Source: Adopted from [36].
and the stiffness matrix is updated. This procedure is repeated until the
target load for the current simulation step is reached. The SLA is a local
damage algorithm because the damage state at each integration point
does only depend on the underlying stress tensor. Thus, no averaging of
stresses or strains over a neighborhood of integration points is carried
out. For a more detailed explanation of the algorithm the reader is re-
ferred to [37]. Note that in a more recent work Dunant showed that
load scaling, impractical in the case of ASR, is not necessary to obtain
convergence when using the fracture criterion to determine, which
integration point should be damaged [39]. Because the SLA solution
procedure consists of a sequence of linear elastic computations and the
increase of damage is controlled, numerical instabilities do not arise.
However, as illustrated in Fig. 2 the stress-strain curve obtained with
SLA differs from the original tensile softening curve and due to its
characteristic shape it is often termed saw-tooth approximation. It is also
evident from Fig. 2 that the SLA will underestimate the theoretical
fracture energy
1 are computationally expensive. This stems from two facts. Firstly, the
Gf = σc εu wc ,
2 (17)
where σc is the tensile strength, εu is the ultimate strain and wc is the
crack bandwidth. In fact, the effective fracture energy Gf,eff obtained
with the SLA corresponds to the area below the saw-tooth curve mul-
tiplied by wc. Note that as a first approximation it is assumed that for
linear triangular elements this crack bandwidth corresponds to the fi-
nite element size h. The quality of the saw-tooth approximation, and
thus the effective fracture energy, depend on how the stiffness is re-
duced in each step and on the total number of reduction steps. In this
work the following stiffness reduction is applied:
E trade-off between code modularity and efficiency. Communications and
Ei = fori = 1…N .
ai (18)
Once the number of reduction steps is set, the constant a is chosen as
a function of N, such that the area under the saw tooth diagram is
maximized:
N −1
a: =arg max A (x ) = ∑ Ai (x )
x>1 i=0 (19)
When the final reduction step N is reached, the stiffness of the fully
broken element is set to 10−5. In order to adjust the dissipated fracture
93
Cement and Concrete Research 109 (2018) 90–102
Fig. 3. Regularized saw-tooth diagram: The input ultimate strain εu and input
tensile strength σc for the SLA are increased to εu* and σc* , respectively. This
ensures that the dissipated fracture energy matches the theoretical value.
Source: Adopted from [36].
energy to the theoretical value, different regularization techniques have
been proposed by Rots and Invernizzi in [36]. These techniques consist
of increasing the tensile stress limit σc, the ultimate strain εu or both.
Rots and Invernizzi found that the best results are obtained with a
combined regularization technique, where σc and εu are simultaneously
adjusted. Consequently, this regularization technique is applied in this
work. The corresponding regularized saw-tooth curve is illustrated in
Fig. 3. The parameter k, which is required to compute the updated
strength σc* = kσc and updated ultimate strain εu* = kεu , can be expressed
as
Gf / wc
k= N −1 1 2
,
∑i = 0 σ E
2 c, i i
bi (20)
⎧ ⎛1 − 1 ⎞, for0 ≤ i < N − 1
bi = a⎠
⎨⎝
⎩1, fori = N − 1 (21)
if the stiffness reduction technique provided in Eq. (18) is used.
3.3. Parallelism
ASR simulations with the model presented in the previous sections
total number of required solve steps is large due to the use of a damage-
controlled algorithm. Secondly, in ASR simulations both, coarse and
fine aggregates, must be resolved explicitly because reactive material is
present in aggregates of any size. This results in large finite element
meshes. Therefore, an efficient parallel code is required to allow the fast
execution of ASR meso-scale simulations on modern computer clusters.
Within this work the presented ASR model has been implemented in the
parallel open-source finite element library Akantu [30]. This library is
written in C++ but it uses the object-oriented paradigm only at high
level layers. For low level layers a vectorization approach is applied
instead. This innovative choice of FE code architecture ensures the best
synchronizations in parallel Akantu simulations are handled by the
Message Passing Interface (MPI). A parallel finite element simulation
with Akantu starts with the partitioning of the finite element mesh into
sub-meshes, such that the total number of sub-meshes equals the size of
processors involved in the computations and all sub-meshes are of si-
milar size. The mesh-partitioning is handled by the mesh-partitioner
Scotch [40], to which Akantu provides an interface. The sub-meshes
are, subsequently, distributed among all available processors. In a
second step, each pair of neighboring processors exchanges a layer of
elements that are connected to the sub-mesh boundary they share.
A.I. Cuba Ramos et al.
Fig. 4. (a) Domain decomposition: processor 0 reads the mesh, splits it and
sends a sub-mesh to processor 1. (b) Exchange of ghost element layer.
These elements are termed ghost elements and define the parallel com-
munication scheme for the finite element computations. The decom-
position and generation of ghost elements is illustrated for the case of
two available processors in Fig. 4.
In order to use the IGFEM formulation in Akantu simulations, the
part of the library containing the shape functions and integration
schemes, has been extended to the treatment of IGFEM elements.
Moreover, an efficient algorithm for the interface detection and inter-
face node generation in parallel has been implemented. This algorithm
is executed at the beginning of each step of the simulation. The first part
of the algorithm is carried out by all processors independently and
consists of computing the current intersection points of the material
interfaces with the element edges of standard elements, i.e. non-ghost
elements and ghost elements. For this purpose an interface to the
Computational Geometry Algorithms Library (CGAL) [41], which can
compute intersections between line segments and spheres, has been
implemented in Akantu. Based on the results of the intersection com-
putations all processors generate locally the necessary interface nodes
as shown in Fig. 5. Subsequently, a communication step is carried out
among all processors to synchronize the global node numbers of the
newly generated interface nodes. These global node numbers are re-
quired for the assembly of the global stiffness matrix and the global
force vector, which along with the unknown displacement vector, de-
fine the resulting system of discrete equations. Note that Akantu uses
CGAL's exact multi-precision number type for all intersection
Fig. 5. Interface detection and interface node generation.
94
Cement and Concrete Research 109 (2018) 90–102
computations. This guarantees that the intersection points on ghost
elements are identical to the ones on their corresponding non-ghost
elements. The extension of the SLA for parallel simulations is straight-
forward and has been implemented following the general procedure for
adding new materials in Akantu, detailed in [42]. The solution of the
system of discrete equations, which has to be recomputed after each
damage event, is obtained with a preconditioned conjugate gradient
solver. For this purpose an interface to the Portable, Extensible Toolkit
for Scientific Computation (PETSc) [43], which includes this type of
solver, has been implemented in Akantu.
4. Parametric studies and comparison with experiments
4.1. Sample generation and reference parameters
The algorithm proposed in [44] is used to generate the geometrical
models of cross-sections of standard mortar bars, which are of size
40 × 40 mm. In this algorithm a circular shape is assumed for all ag-
gregates and the Fuller curve is used as a grading curve for the gen-
eration of aggregates. Subsequently, the geometrical models are dis-
cretized with Gmsh [45] into finite-element meshes of linear triangular
elements with a uniform element size h. The resulting numerical mortar
samples contain aggregates of circular shape with diameters ranging
from 0.4 to 3.9 mm. The aggregate packing density is 62% and the
minimum distance between two aggregates is 0.2 mm, which corre-
sponds to the size of a single element for the finest mesh used in the
simulations. An example of a numerical mortar sample with the mesh
partitioning of a parallel simulation is shown in Fig. 6. In order to ac-
count for the reactivity of the aggregates, gel pockets with an initial
radius rG,initial = 0.01 mm are distributed inside the numerical sample.
In each step of an ASR simulation the current radius of the gel pocket is
then increased by a constant radius increment Δr = 0.01 mm until a
final radius rG,final is reached. This final gel pocket radius is computed
such that at the end of the reaction 1% of the aggregate material has
reacted:
1%Saggregate = ngp πrG2, final, (22)
where ngp is the number of gel pockets and Saggregate is the surface of the
sample occupied by aggregate material. Consequently, at the end of the
reaction 1% of the aggregate material has reacted. It should be noted
that since this paper does not aim at reproducing the ASR chemical
reaction kinetics, the link between amount of gel in each simulation
step and time is undefined. The following two inherent characteristics
of the original IGFEM formulation, which is used for the modeling of gel
pocket interfaces, must be considered in the placement process of gel
pockets. Firstly, material interfaces that are fully contained in a single
element cannot be captured. Secondly, a single element can only be
intersected by one material interface. Based on these considerations the
following gel pocket placement algorithm has been implemented:
Algorithm 1. Gel pocket placement algorithm.
A.I. Cuba Ramos et al. Cement and Concrete Research 109 (2018) 90–102

Fig. 6. Example of mesh partitioning among 196 processors. The finite element mesh has 137 126 linear triangular elements.

pockets. In contrast to the aggregate and cement paste parameters,

which are kept constant in all simulations, the gel parameters are varied
in the parametric studies. These parameters include the density of gel
pockets ρ, i.e. the number of gel pockets per square centimeter of ag-
gregate material, the Young's modulus EG and the Poisson's ratio νG of
the gel and the volumetric gel expansion χ. The reference set for the gel
parameters is listed in Table 2. The relationship between imposed ei-
genstrain and volumetric gel expansion is given by

χ = (1 + εeig )3 − 1, (24)

εeig = εeig I, (25)

where I is the second-order identity matrix.

During every ASR simulation the macroscopic expansion and the
relative stiffness in the two principal directions are recorded at the end
of each simulation step. The macroscopic expansion is obtained by
averaging the components of the principal strain tensor over the sample
domain. For the determination of the relative stiffness virtual tension
The material properties of aggregates and cement paste used in the tests are carried out to determine the current stiffness of the sample.
simulations are summarized in Table 1. The relative stiffness is subsequently obtained by normalizing the cur-
In order to account for the underlying heterogeneous micro-struc- rent stiffness by the initial stiffness of the sample. In order to use the
ture of the aggregates and the cement paste, the tensile strength of the reference sample for comparison in the parametric studies, this sample
finite elements constituting aggregates or cement paste, is varied locally must be representative. This implies that the mechanical response of the
according to a Weibull distribution. Consequently, the cumulative dis- reference sample cannot depend on the random configuration of gel
tribution of the effective tensile strength in each element σc,eff takes the pockets, i.e. on the positions of the gel pocket centers. To validate this
following form: criterion a second mortar simulations with reference input parameters
but different random gel pocket configuration was run. The results of
k
σc, eff − 0.8σc the first and second simulation of the reference sample are depicted in
F (σc, eff ) = 1 − exp ⎜⎛−⎛
⎜
⎞ ⎞⎟.
⎟

⎝ ⎝ λ ⎠ ⎠ (23) Fig. 7. Note that the measurements of macroscopic expansion and re-
lative stiffness do not depend on the measuring direction. Thus, in this
In Eq. (23) k and λ are the shape and the scale factor of the Weibull paper the results are only plotted for one measuring direction.
distribution, which are set to 5 and 0.2 ⋅ σc, respectively. The boundary The simulations show that for the reference gel pocket density the
conditions in the ASR simulations are chosen to allow free expansion mechanical response does not depend on the specific gel pocket con-
and the loading results from the imposed eigenstrain inside the gel figuration. Therefore, the ASR reference sample is representative. In
addition to the influence of gel pocket configuration, the influence of
Table 1
the choice of radius increment Δr by which the gel pockets are grown
Material properties for aggregates and cement paste.
during the simulation, was also investigated. For this purpose four ASR
E[GPa] ν [–] Gc [N m−1] σc[MPa] simulations were run, for which the radius increment was varied from
ΔrG = 0.001 mm to ΔrG = 0.1 mm. The variation in the mechanical
Aggregates 59a 0.3a 160b 10b
Cement paste 12a 0.3a 20c 3a
Table 2
a
Taken from [46]. Reference set of input parameters for the parametric studies.
E[GPa] ν [–] χ [%] ρ [cm−2]
b
Taken from [47].
Gel 11 0.18 34 10.6
c
Taken from [48].

95
A.I. Cuba Ramos et al. Cement and Concrete Research 109 (2018) 90–102

Fig. 7. Results from mortar simulations

with two different random gel pocket con-
figurations. (a) Macroscopic expansion
plotted against the amount of gel. The
points indicated by the three arrows corre-
spond to the stages of reaction, for which
the damage inside the sample is shown in
Fig. 8. (b) Relative stiffness plotted against
the macroscopic expansion.

response was found to be in the same order of magnitude as the var-

iation due to randomness of gel pocket center positions. Consequently,
this effect can be considered negligible. Finally, the role of the Weibull
distribution was analyzed by running an ASR simulation without
Weibull distribution and the same mechanical response as for the re-
ference sample was again obtained. This observation implies that in the
case of ASR the Weibull distribution is not an influencing parameter
(for the selected Weibull parameters).
The damage states inside the reference sample, which corresponds
to the three points in Fig. 7 (a), are shown in Fig. 8. The cracks start
around the gel pockets and grow in size as the reaction advances.

4.2. Mesh regularization

As discussed in Section 3.2 the SLA should always be used in

combination with a mesh regularization technique. This is required in
order to ensure that the dissipated energy and mechanical response of
the specimen do not depend on the mesh size or on the way how the
stiffness and the strength are reduced during each damage event. The
effectiveness of the combined tensile strength and ultimate strain reg-
ularization proposed by Rots and Invernizzi in [36] has been validated
in this work with two sets of ASR simulations. The results of the first set,
in which the number of stiffness reduction steps N has been varied, is
depicted in Fig. 9. For simulations without regularization the relative
stiffness decreases faster, if the number of damage steps is reduced from
10 to 5. This can be explained by the fact, that the amount of energy
dissipated is decreasing with decreasing number of reduction steps.
Consequently, decreasing the number of reduction steps leads to a more Fig. 8. Damage states inside the reference sample at the three stages of ASR,
brittle response of the sample. In contrast, the simulations with reg- which are indicated in Fig. 7 (a). Three different material phases are explicitly
ularization are insensitive to variations in N for the tested range. considered: ASR gel, aggregates and cement paste and gel. The cracks, caused
Moreover, the results show that for the simulation with N = 10 the by the expansion of gel pockets, are shown in red. They are constituted of fully
damaged finite elements. (For interpretation of the references to color in this
mesh regularization has little effect. This indicates that for the problem
figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
at hand 10 reduction steps are sufficient to approximate well the ori-
ginal tensile softening curve, even if no regularization is applied. The
second set of simulations has been carried out in order to investigate the macroscopic response of the sample is invariant to the number of re-
influence of the mesh size. Three different meshes have been used in the duction steps and the mesh size, if the combined regularization tech-
simulations: The reference mesh with href = 0.2 mm, a medium fine nique is used.
mesh with h = 0.75 href and a fine mesh with h = 0.5 href. As shown in
Fig. 10 the effect of the mesh size on the results, obtained with the 4.3. Elastic modulus and Poisson's ratio of the gel
regularization technique, is negligible. It can thus be concluded that
both sets of simulations confirm the results of Rots and Invernizzi. The The Young's modulus of ASR gel present in concrete aggregates was

96
A.I. Cuba Ramos et al.
Fig. 9. Influence of stiffness reduction steps N. Without regularization technique the results depend on the choice of N. In contrast, the results obtained with the
combined regularization technique do not depend on N.
Fig. 10. Influence of mesh size: The use of the combined regularization tech-
nique ensures that results are objective with respect to the mesh size.
determined experimentally for the first time by Leemann and Lura [49].
They obtained values ranging from 7 to11 GPa for gel that had formed
within the aggregate, i.e. away from the aggregate edge. In their study
they assumed a Poisson's ratio of 0.18. In a subsequent experimental
work, Moon et al. [50] reported a Young's modulus of 25 GPa and as-
sumed a Poisson's ratio of 0.35. The measurements were carried out on
gel, which had leaked out of cracks. In Fig. 11a we show how the choice
of values for the Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio of the gel influ-
ences the macroscopic expansion of the numerical mortar sample. The
curves from simulations with higher values of E and ν compared to the
reference values, show a faster growth of macroscopic expansion with
increasing amount of gel. This change in the macroscopic expansion
97
Cement and Concrete Research 109 (2018) 90–102
curves can be explained by a difference in the onset and evolution of
damage around the gel pockets, which is depicted in Fig. 11b. Stiffer or
less compressible gels cause a faster increase of damage in the sur-
rounding material. The progress of relative stiffness as a function of
macroscopic expansion is not affected by the elastic properties, as
shown in Fig. 11c. This is due to the fact, that independently of the gel
properties the same number of cracks are being opened. Stiffer and less
compressible gels will open these cracks faster, i.e. at lower stages of
chemical reaction but in all cases the same crack network is being
formed.
4.4. Volumetric gel expansion
The range of experimental values reported for the volumetric gel
expansion χ is large [51, 52]. Moreover, different theories exist re-
garding the origin of the gel swelling, which have been summarized
recently in [1]. In this work the volumetric gel expansion χ was varied
from 2% to 70%. The effect of the choice of χ on the macroscopic ex-
pansion is shown in Fig. 12a. For high values of χ the samples exhibit
significant macroscopic expansion immediately from beginning of the
reaction, whereas for intermediate values of χ an initial slow take-off
phase is observed. Low expansive gels cannot cause significant mac-
roscopic expansion even at late stages of the reaction. Thus, increasing
χ has a similar effect to increasing the elastic constants of the gel. Gels
with a high volumetric expansion coefficient immediately cause crack
initiation inside the aggregates as shown in Fig. 12b. For less expansive
gels a large part of the eigenstrain can be compensated by elastic de-
formation of the gel. Therefore, the surrounding material is experien-
cing lower stresses and damage inside the aggregates increases slower.
Finally, gels with little expansive behavior cause almost no damage in
the aggregates at any stage of the reaction. Changing the value of χ does
not affect the relationship between relative stiffness and macroscopic
expansion, as shown in Fig. 12c. Like for the variation of E and ν, a
variation of χ does also not change the number of cracks that are
formed, but only influences how fast these cracks open.
4.5. Gel pocket density
The evolution of the macroscopic expansion and relative stiffness
A.I. Cuba Ramos et al.
Fig. 11. Influence of Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio of the gel. The reference lines were obtained for ASR gel with a Young's modulus of E = 11 GPa and
ν = 0.18. (a) Macroscopic expansion plotted against the amount of gel. (b) Percentage of damaged aggregate area plotted against the amount of gel. (c) Relative
stiffness plotted against the macroscopic expansion.
for different gel pocket densities is depicted in Fig. 13. In samples with
lower gel pocket densities the gel is concentrated in a fewer number of
gel pockets. Consequently, at the same stage of chemical reaction, i.e.
same amount of gel, the radius of gel pockets in a sample with a low gel
pocket density will be larger than for samples with a high gel pocket
density. The bigger the gel pocket is the farther it can open a crack. This
effect explains why the macroscopic expansion increases faster for
lower gel pocket densities. In contrast, the relative stiffness curve is
influenced by the gel pocket density in a non-linear fashion. For a given
value of macroscopic expansion, the relative stiffness takes the lowest
value for the sample with the lowest gel pocket density. For the sample
with the second lowest gel pocket density, i.e. the reference sample, the
relative stiffness increases but then decreases again as the gel pocket
density is further increased. A possible explanation for this non-line-
arity could be the presence of two competing effects: The relative
stiffness curve depends on the number of cracks, and thus on the gel
pocket density, but also on the crack-opening displacement of the
98
Cement and Concrete Research 109 (2018) 90–102
percolating cracks. Increasing the gel pocket density, increases the
number of cracks but decreases the crack-opening displacement. It has,
however, not been tested, if the response of the sample with the lowest
gel pocket density is still representative. Thus, the origins of this non-
linearity remain unclear.
4.6. Comparison with experiments
In the following the experimental data from Ben Haha [47] are used
to compare the results of the parametric studies with experiments. Ben
Haha reported, among other things, the evolution of macroscopic ex-
pansion and relative stiffness as a function of the degree of degradation.
Measuring the degree of degradation, i.e. amount of gel and cracks
inside the aggregates (see Section 2.1), in simulations does not yield
meaningful results because the crack width is mesh size dependent.
Consequently, in order to allow a direct comparison of experimental
values and simulation results, Ben Haha's results on the evolution of
A.I. Cuba Ramos et al.
Fig. 12. Influence of volumetric gel expansion χ. The reference simulation corresponds to a value of χ equal to 34%. (a) Macroscopic expansion plotted against the
amount of gel. (b) Percentage of damaged aggregate area plotted against the amount of gel. (c) Relative stiffness plotted against the macroscopic expansion.
macroscopic expansion and relative stiffness were combined into a
single plot. This plot, which contains also the results of the parametric
studies is shown in Fig. 14. It is evident from this figure that there is a
large discrepancy between experimental values and simulation results.
The same observations were recently reported by Dunant [53], who
carried out ASR simulations with the latest version of the serial finite
element library AMIE [27]. This library contains a similar ASR meso-
scale model. The mismatch between the experiments and simulations
can be partially explained by the absence of visco-elasticity in the ce-
ment paste. In a recent study, Giorla et al. have shown that accounting
for the visco-elasticity in numerical ASR simulations significantly re-
duces the damage inside the cement paste compared to purely elastic-
brittle simulations [29]. However, the creep deformations measured in
lab experiments of ASR are typically in the same order of magnitude as
the ASR deformations (e.g. [54]). Consequently, it is unlikely that the
too brittle response in simulations can solely be attributed to the
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Cement and Concrete Research 109 (2018) 90–102
absence of visco-elasticity in the cement paste. An additional reason for
the overestimation of the loss of stiffness, could be related to the two-
dimensional representation of the ASR-affected mortar in the numerical
simulations. The results of Wang et al. have, for instance, shown that 2D
simulations of fracture in concrete yield a more brittle response com-
pared to 3D simulations [55]. In another work, Wang et al. analyzed the
effect of the aggregate shape on the load-bearing capacity of concrete
samples. They found that the post-peak softening response varies for
samples with circular, elliptical, and polygonal aggregates [56]. Giorla
compared damage patterns obtained from simulations of ASR-affected
mortar with circular aggregates and ellipsoidal aggregates [28]. In the
case of ellipsoidal aggregates, the damage was more concentrated in-
side the aggregates and cracks did propagate less inside the cement
paste. These differences in resulting crack patterns should also have an
effect on the softening behavior of the samples. Finally, the fact that in
the current ASR model cracks are assumed to be empty, i.e. not filled
A.I. Cuba Ramos et al. Cement and Concrete Research 109 (2018) 90–102

Fig. 13. Results from mortar simulations with different gel pocket densities. The reference gel pocket density is 10.6 cm−2. (a) Macroscopic expansion plotted
against the amount of gel. (b) Relative stiffness plotted against the macroscopic expansion.

Fig. 14. Comparison between results obtained from the parametric studies and experiments. The grey shaded area corresponds to the range of experimental values
reported by Ben Haha [47].

with gel, and interlock and crack closure effects are not captured,
should reduce the load-bearing capacity of the numerical sample
compared to experiments. Accounting for the presence of gel inside the
ASR-induced cracks in numerical or analytical models requires more
knowledge on what percentage of cracks is filled with gel. It is, more-
over, not clear, how the gel inside cracks contributes to the overall
stiffness and tensile strength of the material. In ASR models, which treat
cracks as being fully or partially filled, the gel is typically modeled as a
liquid phase. Consequently, forces can only be transmitted, if the gel is
compressed. However, in a recent modeling and experimental work by
Esposito and Hendriks [13] it was hypothesized, that the gel transforms
from an initial liquid state to a more solid state at later stages. This
assumption is in line with experimental observations, which showed
that the gel becomes more rigid once it reaches the cement paste [49,
57-59]. The increase in rigidity is caused by an absorption of calcium
from the cement paste. Consequently, gels with high calcium content
might contribute more to the overall mechanical behavior of the con-
crete. Finally, to correctly model the contribution of the gel in nu-
merical tension tests, it should also be investigated experimentally
whether there exists a physical link between the gel phase and the
surrounding material and what the interfacial strength of this link is.

100
A.I. Cuba Ramos et al.
5. Conclusions
In this work a fully-parallel finite-element model for high-perfor-
mance simulations of ASR-induced material deterioration has been
developed. Due to the parallel implementation not only the coarse but
also the fine reactive aggregates can be explicitly represented in the
numerical simulation. The ASR model has been applied to investigate
the role of the mechanical properties of the gel and its spatial dis-
tribution in the ASR-degradation process. It was found, that the re-
lationship between relative stiffness and macroscopic expansion of ASR-
affected mortar or concrete depends solely on the number of gel pockets
and is independent of the mechanical gel properties. This observation
can be explained by the fact, that the number of gel pockets determine
how many cracks form. Consequently, the importance of representing
the gel phase explicitly in simulations of ASR is highlighted by this
finding. The numerical results furthermore showed that the gel prop-
erties strongly influence the damage kinetics. Stiffer or more expansive
gels cause high amounts of damage already at early stages of reaction.
In contrast, more compliant or less expansive gels need to grow more in
size, before they can cause the opening of cracks. The current model,
however, significantly overestimates the loss of macroscopic stiffness
due to ASR. This discrepancy between simulations and experimental
data taken from literature can be explained partially by the absence of
visco-elasticity in the cement paste. Yet, more important for the stiff-
ness evolution of ASR-affected concrete may be that ASR-cracks con-
tribute to the overall load capacity of the ASR samples in experimental
compression tests. In order to capture this effect in ASR models future
experimental research should address the issue of how much gel is
present inside the cracks and whether the gel can transmit only com-
pressive or also tensile loads. Once the model can reproduce the ex-
perimental results, it could also be used in macro-scale simulations of
ASR with a multi-scale formulation (for example FE2 [60]). Such an
application would avoid the use of phenomenological laws at the
macro-scale of concrete.
Acknowledgment
The financial support of the Swiss Federal Office of Energy within
the project “Multi-Scale Modeling of the Alkali-Silica Reaction” is
gratefully acknowledged (Contract No. SI/500852-01). In addition,
Mauro Corrado gratefully acknowledges the support of the European
Union Seventh Framework Programme under a Marie Curie Intra-
European Fellowship for Career Development (Grant Agreement No.
628921).
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