Numerical simulation of biomimetic self-healing cementitious materials

Sayadi Moghadam, Sina ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1961-4021 2024. Numerical simulation of biomimetic self-healing cementitious materials. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

The biomimetic approach to enhance the performance of material has been attracting attention for decades, especially in cementitious materials such as concrete, in which they have shown promising results in terms of mechanical recovery after damage. The crack healing process is multiscale in nature and involves various mechanical and chemical mechanisms, which need to be taken into account in order to accurately predict the behaviour of these materials. Two distinct frameworks are chosen to represent the rate-dependent crack-healing effect on the mechanical characteristics of self-healing materials. The discrete Lattice approach and micromechanical model are employed. The former represents the explicit random distribution of self-healing meso and microstructures, whilst the latter gives an overall form of constitutive behaviour of the system. The new micromechanical model simulates self-healing rate dependency as well as allowing for healing under loaded conditions. Moreover, continuous cycles of crack-healing and their effect on the mechanical performance of self-healing materials were considered through a novel micromechanical framework which satisfies the second thermodynamics law. The proposed constitutive formulation was implemented in the Cardiff finite element code Cardinal for simulating boundary value problems. The Lattice approach, on the other hand, includes element-level healing and considers the damage-healing effect on the updated overall stiffness matrix as well as the healed element. This method provides detailed information on fracture process zones and associated crack-healing regions. A range of self-healing scenarios and systems were simulated in this study and the proposed numerical methods were successfully validated against experimental data.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Engineering
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Micromechanics; self-healing materials; Rate dependent healing; Constitutive formulation; Finite element analysis; Numerical modelling
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	12 February 2025
Last Modified:	12 Feb 2025 15:48
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/176125

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