Microplane modeling of ASR effects on concrete structures

A modified microplane model was developed to simulate the alkali-silica reaction (ASR) damage based on the latest version of microplane theory M7 in order to accurately modeling the complicated behavior of concrete structures subjected to ASR. The material damage caused by the volume expansion of ASR gel was modeled in M7 as a reduction of material stiffness and boundaries. A stress effect function was proposed to depend on the normal stress of the microplane in order to consider the modification of ASR expansions due to applied stresses. The explicit algorithm for the model was established and implemented into commercial software ABAQUS. Finite element analysis of the ASR effect on laboratory specimens was conducted. The analytical results accorded with the experimental data. The validity of the proposed model was illustrated.