Title: Upscaling concrete properties: a rational approach to account for the material complexity and variability

Authors: Yann Le Pape, Charles Toulemonde, Julien Sanahuja, Alain Giorla, Benoit Bary

Addresses: Department of Materials and Mechanics of Components, The Materials Ageing Institut, Electricite de France, Moret-sur-Loing 77250, France. ' Department of Materials and Mechanics of Components, The Materials Ageing Institut, Electricite de France, Moret-sur-Loing 77250, France. ' Department of Materials and Mechanics of Components, The Materials Ageing Institut, Electricite de France, Moret-sur-Loing 77250, France. ' Ecole Centrale de Nantes 1, rue de la Noe, BP 92101, 44321 Nantes Cedex 3, France. ' CEA Saclay, DEN/DPC/SCCME/LECBA, 91191 Gif s/Yvette, France

Abstract: Life management of electric hydro- or nuclear power plants requires estimating long-term concrete properties on concrete facilities for obvious safety and serviceability reasons. Decades-old structures are foreseen to be operational for several more decades. Operational time-scale is thus far more extended than laboratory test duration. Additionally, tests on rather old concrete can hardly be done again due to the difficulties of finding genuinely representative cement or aggregates and, as far as dams are sometimes concerned, to the large size of the coarse aggregates. In order to estimate long-term mechanical properties upscaling techniques offer an interesting alternative. Two approaches are described in the sequel: 0D analytical and semi-analytical simulation based on homogenisation techniques and 3D numerical simulation.

Keywords: cement ageing; concrete ageing; homogenisation; simulation; nuclear power plants; concrete testing.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMSI.2009.028616

International Journal of Materials and Structural Integrity, 2009 Vol.3 No.2/3, pp.227 - 246

Published online: 21 Sep 2009 *

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