Construction and Building Materials 147 (2017) 488496

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Construction and Building Materials

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

Investigation of the curing time on the mechanical behavior of normal

concrete under triaxial compression
Chen Da a,, Yu Xiao-tong a, Shen Jun a, Liao Ying-di a, Zhang Yan b,
a
College of Harbour, Coastal and Offshore Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
b
College of Mechanics and Materials, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China

h i g h l i g h t s

Effect of curing time on the triaxial mechanical behavior of concrete was studied.

Failure strength, plastic deformation is highly dependent on the confining pressure.

Present curing time dependent model can describe the main behavior of the concrete.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Due to its hydration process and applications under complex loadings, concrete is a live material and
Received 9 December 2016 might be subjected to triaxial loadings in short time after pouring. The aim of this study is to investigate
Received in revised form 23 April 2017 the main mechanical behavior of normal concrete at different curing time under different confining stress
Accepted 24 April 2017
state. A series of triaxial compression tests of a concrete are conducted firstly. Four curing times of 3, 7, 14
Available online 3 May 2017
and 28 days, as well as four confining pressures of 0, 5, 10 and 20 MPa, are considered at a C30 concrete
type. The interesting observation is that the failure strength and plastic deformation of concrete is not
Keywords:
only related to curing time, but also highly dependent on the confining pressure. With the increasing
Concrete
Curing time
of confinement, curing time dependence on deformation and failure strength is increasing and decreasing
Triaxial compression respectively. Based on experimental investigations, a curing time dependent constitutive model is pro-
Mechanical behavior posed. In this model, the effect of curing time is introduced to elastic characteristic, failure function
Constitutive law and plastic hardening law. Finally, calibration of the proposed model shows good agreement with the test
results.
2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction evolution of their mechanical behavior at early age is beneficial to

In the 21st century, concrete materials have been widely used in
engineering constructions. As it is applied in civil engineering pro-
jects such as military defense shelter, nuclear containment, and
deep sea drilling project, their mechanical behaviors of concrete
under triaxial loading have become the focus in analyzing and sta-
bilizing concrete structures. These multiaxial loadings are normally
generated by hydrostatic pressure, thermal stress, soil pressure and
boundary limitations individually or simultaneously. Through the
relevant modeling and numerical calculation method, structure
simulation and analysis at early age have become a hot topic for sci-
entists and engineers. Meanwhile, concrete is a common and effec-
tive material especially for rush-repair work. Understanding the
Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: chenda@hhu.edu.cn (D. Chen), yan.zhang@hhu.edu.cn
(Y. Zhang).
accelerate the repair process. Furthermore, in the case of disasters,
e.g. earthquake and wars, complex loadings may lead structures
poured within few days to hazards. Thus, it is necessary to study
the mechanical behaviors of concrete at the early stages as well
as analyzing their characteristic under complex loadings.
The experimental researches under complex loadings have
mainly been performed by compression tests with confining pres-
sure. The Hoek triaxial cell or an analogous one with a larger
dimension is often utilized [1]. The relevant researches show that
with the increasing of the confining pressure, the failure stress of
concrete would be increased obviously. Meanwhile, a transition
from brittle to ductile fracture can be observed [24]. A large num-
ber of triaxial tests supported the experimental researches on dif-
ferent concrete, such as normal concrete, high strength concrete
(HSC), high strength fibre reinforced concrete (HSFRC) [38], as
well as the influence of environment conditions, e.g. freeze-thaw
cycles [9], chemical corrosion [10].

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2017.04.180
0950-0618/ 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 D. Chen et al. / Construction and Building Materials 147 (2017) 488496
Based on the relevant experimental data, continuous researches
have been concentrated on developing the constitutive models.
The constitutive law is a general term and it may include yield
criteria, failure criteria, hardening law and flow rule. After the
well-known Mohr-Coulomb theory, many modelings have been
established and modified by introducing the principal shear
stresses, the principal normal stress and stress invariants. Tresca
criterion [11], von Mises criterion [12], Drucker-Prager criterion
[13], Ottosen criterion [14], Willam-Warnke criterion [15], and
their modified formulations, as well as others work [1618], have
been proposed to develop the modeling the mechanical behavior of
concrete. Meanwhile, some damage criteria established by Mazars
[19] and Kitsutaka [20] can be introduced to describe its softening
behavior. More detailed contents can be found in relevant review
articles and books [21,22]. As classical quasi-brittle material, e.g.,
rock and concrete, the mechanical behavior of concrete is similar
to that of rock [23]. The further modeling research of concrete is
analogue to that of rock [24,25].
As well-known, concrete is a live material and its strength
development is a result of the hydration process or curing time
[26]. Therefore, the concrete at early age might show time depen-
dent elastoplastic behavior with respect to different curing time.
However, it is found that the applied constitutive laws are gener-
ally established on uniaxial compression tests while the plastic
evolution at early age under triaxial stress state is always neglected
[27]. Meanwhile, a series of researches on elastic characteristic,
uniaxial compressive strength, flexural strength, as well as shrink-
age of concrete at early age have been conducted [2831]. We can
see clearly that there are few studies investigating the mechanical
behavior of early age concrete under multiaxial loading. Consider-
ing the above mentioned applications related to both early age and
complex loading, it is necessary to carry out the investigation of
concrete at different curing time under triaxial loading.
In this paper, a C30 normal concrete is investigated systemati-
cally. A series of triaxial compression tests are performed firstly.
Four curing times of 3, 7, 14 and 28 days, as well as four confining
pressures (Pc) of 0, 5, 10 and 20 MPa, are considered. Then a curing
time dependent constitutive law is proposed. Based on the exper-
imental data and relevant calculation method, the models param-
eters are determined and the numerical simulation is calibrated
finally.
2. Experimental research
2.1. Experimental preparation
The Ordinary Portland cement (P.O. 42.5) produced by Anhui
Conch Cement Company, China was in use and its strength charac-
teristics was confirmed to GB/T 17671-1999 [32]. The fine aggre-
gates with fineness modulus of 2.5 were used in this study.
According to the dimension of the samples, the crushed limestones
with a maximum particle size of 10 mm were selected as the coarse
aggregates. Mixture proportions were designed to achieve a mean
value compressive strength of 30 MPa at 28 days. Table 1 shows
the mix proportions of the mixture by weight. Furthermore, the
slump test of fresh concrete was performed according to GB/T
50080-2002 [33]. The slump of the concrete was 10 cm, which indi-
cated that the concrete mixture had good workability. The fresh
Table 1
Mix proportions of the concrete (kg/m3).
Cement Sand Coarse aggregate
350 736.5 1104.7
489
mixture was put into the U 50 mm  100 mm cylindrical molds
by three times, and compacted by a vibrating table for 23 min at
a frequency of 50 Hz and vibration amplitude of 0.5 mm. After com-
pacting, the samples were cured at 20 C for 24 h. Then the demold-
ing was done and the specimens were cured in water saturated
with lime at 20 C until the day of test in accordance with GB/
T50081-2002 [34]. Three cylindrical samples were used for each
compression test, and there were totally 84 cylinders were tested
in this study. Meanwhile, 12 100 mm  100 mm  100 mm cubic
samples were made in the same conditions. Three cubic samples
were used in each splitting tensile test.
The compression tests and splitting tensile tests were per-
formed at 3, 7, 14 and 28 days, respectively. After being cured in
saturated lime water for 3, 7, 14 and 28 days, the concrete samples
were taken out from lime water, the surface of each specimen was
thoroughly washed and was wiped with soft cloth. The triaxial
compressive tests of cylindrical samples were performed in the tri-
axial cell V5 system (Fig. 1) of TOP INDUSTRY, France. Meanwhile,
the splitting tests with cubic samples were conducted in a 3000 kN
electro-hydraulic servo universal test machine.
In the present triaxial system, the maximum of confining
pressure and deviator stress can be up to 40 MPa and 150 MPa
respectively. The axial displacement is measured by two LVDTs
in the cell, and the lateral deformation is measured with a special
strain ring located at the middle of the sample. In our study, the tri-
axial test was performed by two loading stages shown in Fig. 2. The
axial and confining pressures were simultaneously applied to tar-
geted values r3 in load control at first. Then the confining pressure
was kept constant at the targeted level, the control load mode was
transformed to axial displacement control with rate of 1 lm/s and
the deviatoric stress (r1r3) increased until the specimen reached
fractured. In this study, four series of triaxial compression tests
were carried out at 3, 7, 14 and 28 days. In each series, four triaxial
compression tests with the confining pressures of 0, 5, 10 and
20 MPa were performed.
The tensile strength was obtained by the splitting test and
would be used as a reference for hydrostatic tension strength. In
the following section, hydrostatic tension strength will be intro-
duced to establish the modeling. It is generally accepted that it is
hard to measure the hydrostatic tension strength. Meanwhile,
hydrostatic tension strength might be some smaller than the ten-
sile strength. Thus, the value of the tensile strength can be used
to limit the range of hydrostatic tension strength. In this study,
four splitting tests were performed at 3, 7, 14 and 28 days.
2.2. Experimental results and analysis
Triaxial compression tests were carried out respectively to char-
acterize basic mechanical behavior of concrete at different curing
time. The stress-strain curves obtained from these triaxial com-
pression tests are shown in Fig. 3(ad).
The elastic characteristic is discussed firstly and Table 2 shows
the elastic modulus of the concrete at different curing time. The
elastic modulus is obtained at the initial linear elastic stage, and
defined as the slope of stress versus axial strain. The elastic modu-
lus of the concrete enhances gradually as the curing time increases
due to the continuous hydration. Such early-age concrete stiffening
has also been reported by other authors [30,29,35], and is often
introduced as aging elasticity. In our study, there is no evident
evolution of the Poissons ratio (m) with respect to curing time. In
literature, the evolution of the Poissons ratio is neither not always
taken into account. Truman and Oluokun conclude that m remains
constant during hydration [36,37], although some lower values at
Water very early age are mentioned [37].
Under low confining pressure, the curing time causes a signifi-
210
cant increase of failure strength. The hydration between 3 days and
490 D. Chen et al. / Construction and Building Materials 147 (2017) 488496
Upper clamp
Sample in Viton membrane
Low clamp
Fig. 1. The device and the sample fabricated for triaxial compression test.
Fig. 2. The path of the load in the triaxial compression test.
28 days leads to a significant increase of failure strength, from
16.2 MPa to 31.1 MPa under uniaxial compression, and from
38.1 MPa to 47.6 MPa under confining pressure of 5 MPa. However,
the effect of curing time on the failure strength decreases with the
increasing of the confinement. There is 92.0% increase in compres-
sive strength from 3 days to 28 days of the samples under uniaxial
compression. While the compressive strength growth rates are
24.9%, 13.6% under confining pressure of 5 MPa, 10 MPa. When
the confining pressure reaches 20 MPa, effect of curing time can
even be ignored for there is only a 4.2% difference between 3 days
and 28 days. It may be due to the fact that the high confining pres-
sures not only close the micro-cracks, compact the concrete, but
induce high interstitial pressure in the concrete [10], both of them
enhance the compressive strength. On the other hand, the hydra-
tion products fill the internal pores in the concrete, which shows
less influence on the compressive strength in comparison with
the confining pressure.
To further investigate the effect of the curing time on the failure
strength, the deviatoric failure strength of concrete at different
ages are depicted in the pq plane (p being the compressive mean
stress and q being the deviatoric stress) as presented in Fig. 4. Fig. 4
also shows the relevant failure surfaces, that the failure function
will be proposed in Part 3, by continuous lines. There is a good
agreement between our experimental results and the present fail-
ure function. It is clear that the failure surfaces show different
LVDT
Ring for radial strain
behaviors at low confining pressure. With the increasing of the
confining pressure, the failure surfaces converge to the same
tendency. This means that for failure strength, the effect of curing
time is changeable due to the confining stress effect.
From Fig. 3, we can see totally that the evolution of strain is lar-
ger at early age, especially in the case of high confining stress. The
stress-strain relations of concrete at different days with
Pc = 20 MPa are selected from Fig. 3 and then shown in Fig. 5.
Though the high confinement weakens the hydration effect on
the failure strength of concrete, the difference of plastic deforma-
tions among the concrete at different curing ages can be observed.
The axial strain of the sample at 3 days is higher than that at
28 days. A relatively smooth post-peak regime can be observed
in sample at 3 days, while the regime is more significant in sample
at 28 days. It is conclude that the evolution of plastic deformation
is highly influenced by curing ages.
Table 3 shows the values of splitting tensile strength of concrete
at different curing time. It can be clearly seen that the splitting ten-
sile strength increases with an increase of the curing time, like
elastic modulus and deviatoric failure strength. This evolution is
in agreement with previous studies [30,29,38]. The C-S-H produced
by the hydration reaction strengthens the bonds between cement
paste and aggregates, and the growth rate of strength becomes
slower in later hydration period. There is a 24.0% increase in split-
ting tensile strength from 3 days to 7 days, but the splitting tensile
strength is nearly stable and keeps at round 3.8 MPa after 14 days.
In this section, the main results obtained from the triaxial com-
pression test of concrete at different curing time are presented and
discussed. Besides the influence of the curing time on the elastic
modulus and splitting tensile strength is similar to the previous
studies by others, the significant effect of that on the plastic defor-
mation and failure strength under different confining pressure
have been further analyzed.
3. Formulation of the model
Based on the above experimental investigations, the mechanical
behavior of this concrete can be described as shearing plastic
mechanism by taking into account the effect of curing time. Due
to the evolution of the mechanical characteristic with respect to
curing time, the effect of curing time is introduced to elastic char-
acteristic, failure function and plastic hardening law. The present
modeling is deduced by two steps: establish a general elastoplastic
modeling first, and then describe the time dependent parameters
with function of curing time.
 D. Chen et al. / Construction and Building Materials 147 (2017) 488496 491

1-3 (MPa) 1-3 (MPa)

100 100

Pc = 20 MPa
80 80
Pc = 20 MPa

60 60
Pc = 10 MPa Pc = 10 MPa

40 40
Pc = 5 MPa Pc = 5 MPa
20 20
Pc = 0 MPa
3( ) Pc = 0 MPa 1( ) 3( ) 1( )
0 0
-4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4
(a) 3 days (b) 7 days
1-3 (MPa) 1-3 (MPa)
100 100
Pc = 20 MPa Pc = 20 MPa
80 80

60 60
Pc = 10 MPa Pc = 10 MPa

40 40
Pc = 5 MPa Pc = 5 MPa
20 20
Pc = 0 MPa Pc = 0 MPa
3( ) 1( ) 3( ) 1( )
0 0
-4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4

(c) 14 days (d) 28 days

Fig. 3. Stress-strain curves of concrete at different curing time.

Table 2 1-3 (MPa)

Elastic modulus of concrete at different curing time. 100
Curing time (d) 3 7 14 28
Elastic modulus (GPa) 19.5 21.9 23.5 25.0 80
28 days
14 days
60 7 days
120
q (MPa) 3 days
Dots experimental data 40
100 Lines failure surface

80 20

20
q (MPa) 3( ) 1( )
60 0
15 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4
40 28 days
10
Fig. 5. Stress-strain curves of concrete at different days with Pc = 20 MPa.
28 days
7 days
14 days 5
7 days
20 3 days
3 days p (MPa)
0
14 days -4 0 4 Table 3
p (MPa) Splitting tensile strength of concrete at different curing time.
0
-10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 Curing time (d) 3 7 14 28
Splitting tensile strength (MPa) 2.5 3.1 3.7 3.8
Fig. 4. Deviatoric failure surface of concrete at different curing time.

3.1. Framework of model where the dot represents the incremental form or time derivative of
variables.
Under the thermodynamical framework of continuum mechan- The general stress formulation can be expressed as
ics and elastoplastical theory, the assumption of small strain is
r C : ee 2
considered and the total strain e can be composed by an elastic part
ee and a plastic part ep. Thus, the rate form of the strain can be where C is the elastic stiffness tensor of concrete.
described as: The rate form of Eq. (2) can be rewritten as:
e_ e_ e e_ p 1 r_ C : e_  e_ p 3
492 D. Chen et al. / Construction and Building Materials 147 (2017) 488496

By using Hills notation [39], the effective elastic stiffness can be where vp is the regularizing coefficient to take into account the
rewritten in the following general form: effect of confinement. According to the experimental data, it can
be described as a function of minor principal stress:
C 2lK 3kJ 4  
hr3 i  jr3 j
where l is shear modulus and k is bulk modulus. They can be vp exp b 11
Pr
expressed as:
E E where b is a models parameter. hxi is Heaviside function with
l and k 5 hxi 1; x P 0 or hxi 0; x < 0.
21 t 31  2t
where E and t are the Youngs modulus and Poissons ratio. As 3.3. Characterization of plastic flow rule
above discussed, the Youngs modulus of young concrete is highly
depending on the curing time and it will be discussed in Part 3.4. To describe correctly the transition of volumetric deformation
The two fourth order tensors K and J are defined as: from compressibility to dilatancy, it is necessary to introduce a
plastic flow rule. Inspired by the work of Pietruszczak et al. [40],
1
J d  d and K I  J 6 the following non-associated flow rule is used directly:
3  
where d is the second order unit tensor and is the symmetric pC
g q gp  C ln 12
fourth order unit tensor with the component Iijkl 12 dik djl dil djk . I0
where the parameter g defines the transition boundary between
3.2. Characterization of failure function and plastic yield function compressibility and dilatancy. It can be simplified determined by
the stress states at the transition points in triaxial tests. I0 defines
According to our experimental research, it is mentioned that the the intersection point between flow rule and the axis p.
failure condition is highly depending on confining pressure. Thus, When the plastic mechanism is activated, the plastic strain can
the linear criteria, e.g. Mohr-Coulomb or Drucker-Prager criteria, be deduced by plastic flow rule as:
and quadratic function [40] are not suitable for present work.
@g
Inspired by our previous work [41], a high ordered nonlinear fail- e_ p k_ 13
ure function is proposed:
@r

q n   where k_ is the plastic multiplier of the plastic mechanism. Consid-
pC
F A 7 ering the plastic consistency condition, the following expression
Pr Pr
can be obtained:
where q and p are deviatoric stress and mean stress with
q @f @f
q 3
K : r : K : r and p 13 trr respectively. The parameters f_ : r_ c_ p 0 14
2 @r @ cp
A and n define the sharp of failure surface. C is hydrostatic tension
strength of material while Pr is a given reference stress with Combining Eqs. (3), (10), (13) and (14), the plastic multiplier k_
Pr = 1 MPa. In fact, it is hard to determine C and its value can be con- can be deduced as:
sidered some less than tensile strength. The values of A, n and C can @f
: C : e_
be determined by back-analysis method with experimental data. k_ @r
p
@g @g
15
2K: :K:
@f
For young concrete, C is effected by the curing time obviously and @r
: C : @@gr  @@fc 3 @r
vp
@r
p
its evolution will be discussed in Part.3.4.
According to the failure function Eq. (7), the plastic yield func-
tion can be defined with a plastic hardening law: 3.4. Introduction of curing time

q n  
pC
f aA 8 The proposed general modeling contains 8 parameters includ-
Pr Pr ing two elastic parameters E and m, three parameters A, n and C
where a is the plastic hardening law. Neglecting the softening dealing with failure surface, and three plastic parameters B, b
behaviors, it can be generally described as: and g. Based on the following research in Section 4.1, it is found
that E, n, C and B are highly dependent on curing time while the
cp
a 9 other parameters present less dependence. Since concrete is sel-
B cp dom used for loadings within 3 days in construction, the loading
where B and cp are hardening parameter and generalized plastic capacity of concrete at 7, 14 and 28 days is more important for
distortion to control the plastic hardening process. The incremental structure design. The mechanical properties of the concrete at
form of cp can be defined as: 28 days are regarded to be characteristic. The empirical formulas
q based on the material parameters at 3 and 28 days may be more
2
3
K : e_ p : K : e_ p effective in practice. According to their values listed in Table 4,
c_ p 10 the following relations can be proposed as following:
vp

Table 4
Typical values of parameters for different curing time.

Curing time (d) E m n A C B b g

(GPa) (MPa)
3 19.5 0.2 1.180 4.2 1 8.0E5 0.15 1.5
7 21.9 0.2 1.185 4.2 2.2 6.0E5 0.15 1.5
14 23.5 0.2 1.188 4.2 3 4.5E5 0.15 1.5
28 25 0.2 1.190 4.2 3.5 3.5E5 0.15 1.5
 D. Chen et al. / Construction and Building Materials 147 (2017) 488496 493

1.194 n 4.0
C (MPa)
1.192 3.5
1.190
3.0
1.188
1.186 2.5

1.184 2.0
1.182
1.5
1.180
1.0
1.178
t (d) t (d)
1.176 0.5
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 0 10 20 30 40 50 60

(a) n (b) C
26 9 B
E (GPa)
25 8
24
7
23
6
22
5
21

20 4
t (d) t (d)
19 3
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
(c) E (d) B
Fig. 6. Evolution of parameters with curing time t.

q
Et ht  3ibE3 E28  E3 1  h28  ti28  t2 =28  32 c the value of C should be considered with respect to the tensile
q strength. The parameter B controls the evolution of plastic harden-
nt ht  3ibn3 n28  n3 1  h28  ti28  t2 =28  32 c ing. This value can be determined according to Eq. (9) and volu-
q metric plastic deformation with respect to a from experimental
Ct ht  3ibC 3 C 28  C 3 1  h28  ti28  t2 =28  32 c data. Once B is determined, the hardening plastic law can be
q obtained through the determination of b. In order to determine
Bt ht  3ibB3 B28  B3 1  h28  ti28  t2 =28  32 c g, it is necessary to find the point of transition from volumetric
16 strain curve. We collect all transition point in pq plan and the
value of the slope can be used as g. Figs. 712 represent the
where t is the curing time and subscript denotes the corresponding influence of 6 parameters respectively.
time. Fig. 6 shows the curves according to Table 4 and Eq. (16). It is Using the presented method, all the parameters for four curing
clear that the proposed empirical function is suitable for the ten- times have been determined and listed in Table. 4.
dency of these parameters with respect to curing time. According to the relation between parameters and curing time
For elastic modulus, with 2 parameters E3 and E28, the elastic Eq. (16), the present curing time dependent modeling can be finally
modulus of concrete at any curing time can be predicted in Eq. described by E3, E28, t, A, n3, n28, C3, C28, B3, B28, b and g in which the
(16). The prediction of the other three parameters, n, C and B, is subscript denotes the corresponding curing time. With these 12
the same with the parameter E. Totally, 8 parameters are needed parameters listed in Table. 5, the mechanical behavior of this con-
for the evolution of main parameters influenced by the curing time. crete at any curing time under any confining stress can be easily
Also, there are another 4 parameters, m, A, b and g less dependent described by the following calculation method.
on the curing time, but necessary for the whole elastoplastic mod-
eling. Therefore, the present curing time dependent modeling can 4.2. Calibration of the calculation method
be described with 12 parameters. The elastic parameters are E3,
E28 and m. The parameters of failure surface are A, n3, n28, C3 and The proposed model is implemented into the finite element
C28. The plastic parameters are b, g, B3 and B28, respectively. program THMPASA developed at Lille Mechanics Laboratory. This
code has been developed for numerical modeling of mechanical
4. Calibration and numerical simulation evolution problems in engineering media.
In THMPASA program, the global governing equations are
4.1. Calibration of the parameters established in weak form. The loading strain path is divided into
many incremental steps. The core of THMPASA is the update of
The parameters of concrete at different curing time are deduced plastic strain, stress and internal variables at each loading step.
by above experimental tests. The two elastic parameters E and t The iteration process of any step k is summarized as follows:
have been obtained in Part 2. Putting the values of failure strength
of triaxial compression tests with different confining pressures in Step 1. The increment of total strain e_ k is provided as a known
pq plan, the parameters A, n and C are identified easily. Note that loading condition.
494 D. Chen et al. / Construction and Building Materials 147 (2017) 488496

120 60
q (MPa) 1- 3 (MPa)
100 50
B = 8 E-6
80 40
B = 8 E-5

B = 8 E-4
60 30

40 A = 4.5 20
A = 4.0
20 A = 3.5 10

p (MPa) 3 (%) 1 (%)

0 0
-10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 -2 -1 0 1 2

Fig. 7. Influence of parameter A on failure surface. Fig. 10. Influence of parameter B with Pc = 5 MPa.

60
120 1- 3 (MPa)
q (MPa)
50
100
= 0.05
40 = 0.15
80
= 0.25
30
60 n = 1.19
n = 1.18
n = 1.20 20
40

10
20
3 (%) 1 (%)
p (MPa) 0
0 -2 -1 0 1 2
-10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Fig. 11. Influence of parameter b with Pc = 5 MPa.
Fig. 8. Influence of parameter n on failure surface.

60
1- 3 (MPa)
120
q (MPa)
50
100 = 0.6
40 = 1.0
80 = 1.6
30
60
20
40 C = 4
10
C=3
20
v (%) v (%)
C=2 0
p (MPa)
0 -2 -1 0 1 2
-10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Fig. 12. Influence of parameter g with Pc = 5 MPa.

Step 4. Else, calculate the increments of plastic strain by Eq.

(15). Update the elastic prediction and go back Step 3.
Step 5. Update plastic strain, stress and internal variables and
Fig. 9. Influence of parameter C on failure surface. send the updated values to global system.

 4.3. Numerical simulation

Step 2. Assume a fully elastic behavior e_ ek e_ k and deduce
the elastic prediction: r_ k C : e_ k , and rk rk1 r_ k .
Step 3. Calculate the plastic yield function Eq. (8) with r(k). If
f < 0, the elastic prediction is considered as elastic solution
and go to Step. 5.
In this section, we present numerical simulations of triaxial
compression tests performed in Part 2. All 12 parameters have
been determined above and listed in Table.5. The simulations of
this concrete at four curing times are plotted as continuous lines
 D. Chen et al. / Construction and Building Materials 147 (2017) 488496 495

Table 5
Typical values of parameters for curing time dependent modeling.

E3 E28 m n3 n28 A C3 C28 B3 B28 b g

(GPa) (GPa) (MPa) (MPa)
19.5 25 0.2 1.180 1.190 4.2 1.0 3.5 8.0E5 3.5E5 0.15 1.5

1- 3 (MPa) 1- 3 (MPa)
100 100

80 80 Pc = 20 MPa
Pc = 20 MPa
60 60
Pc = 10 MPa Pc = 10 MPa
40 40
Pc = 5 MPa Pc = 5 MPa
20 20 Pc = 0 MPa
Pc = 0 MPa
3 (%) 1 (%) 3 (%) 1 (%)
0 0
-4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4
(a) 3 days (b) 7 days

1- 3 (MPa) 1- 3 (MPa)
100 100

Pc = 20 MPa Pc = 20 MPa
80 80

60 Pc = 10 MPa 60 Pc = 10 MPa

40 Pc = 5 MPa 40 Pc = 5 MPa

Pc = 0 MPa 20 Pc = 0 MPa
20
3 (%) 1 (%) 3 (%) 1 (%)
0 0
-4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4
(c) 14 days (d) 28 days
Fig. 13. Simulations and experimental data of concrete at different curing time.

in Fig.13(a)(d). And the relevant experimental data is drawn as
dotted lines at the same time. We can see that the curing time is
a much important factor in the early curing time while its influence
decreases with increasing of curing time. Furthermore, it is clear
that there is a good agreement between simulations and experi-
mental data. The proposed model can describe the main behavior
of this concrete under different confining stress state and different
curing time condition.
5. Conclusions
(2) The present curing time dependent modeling with 12
parameters can describe the triaxial mechanical properties
of the concrete at different curing time in a large range of
confining pressure. In this model, the effect of curing time
is introduced to elastic characteristic, failure function and
plastic hardening law. Through finite element program
THMPASA, numerical simulation of triaxial compression
tests was performed and shows a good agreement with
experimental results.

Considering the applications of concrete structure under com- Acknowledgments

plex loading within short time after pouring, the understanding
of the curing time on the mechanical behavior of normal concrete
under triaxial compression is essential. In this study, the triaxial
mechanical characteristics of the concrete at different curing time
are analyzed. Based on experimental analysis and elastoplastic the-
ory, a curing time dependent modeling is proposed. And then, cal-
ibration and numerical simulation are performed. The conclusions
can be summarized as follows:
The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support
received from the National Natural Science Foundation of China
(No. 51579088, No. 51509081), the National Natural Science Foun-
dation of Jiangsu province (No. BK20161507, No. BK20150037, No.
BK20150811) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central
Universities (No. 2015B18514).

(1) Concrete is a curing time dependent material. In this study, References

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