1Department of Civil Engineering, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, USA
2Black and Veatch Corp., Bloomington, MN, USA
3Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, USA
*Email id: frank.yazdani@ndsu.edu
Online published on 8 September, 2014.
It has been shown in the literature that the cycles of freeze-thaw (CFT) adversely affect the mechanical properties of brittle materials. To account for the effect of CFT and guided by isotropic hardening/softening theories of damage mechanics, a generalized bounding surface approach is presented. It is argued that the limit surface is a special case in such a formulation when the number of CFT is set to zero and that when subjected to freeze-thaw processes the limit surface is allowed to contract to a residual strength state based on the number of CFT. Within the formulation, specific relation for damage growth is proposed by considering the changes in ultimate strain (strain at failure). Stress-stain curves and anisotropic degradation in mechanical properties are obtained. The results are compared with available experimental data.
Bounding surface, freeze-thaw, response tensor, softening function, stress-strain
