The influence of crumb-rubber on the mechanical properties of Portland cement concrete (PCC) is studied by experimental tests\nand numerical simulations.Themain hypothesis of the study is that replacing part of the stone aggregate with crumb-rubber in the\nmix modifies the energy dissipation during the cracking process and affects the concrete behaviour under monotonically increasing\nloads. The experimental research programcharacterizes themechanical properties of PCC for three different types of concrete with\na variable content of crumb-rubber.The experimental results showed that fracture energy and other properties are directly related\nto the rubber fineness used in the mixture. The material properties derived for these laboratory tests are used to study, by numerical\nmodels, its response through its damage evolution. The numerical model used to simulate the damage evolution of the concrete is\nthe Embedded DiscontinuityMethod (EDM). One characteristic of the EDMis that it does not need to modify the mesh topology to\npropagate the damage through the continuum solid. For this study, the Disk-Shaped Compact Tension specimen geometry, normed\nby the D7313-13 of the ASTM, is used. Results showed that the numerical methods provide good approximation of the experimental\ncurve in the elastic and softening branches.
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