Nonlinear unified strength criterion for concrete under three-dimensional stress states

This paper shows that the mechanical behavior of concrete materials can be described by a nonlinear unified strength criterion which requires four independent parameters for model calibration. The criterion covers all the area from spatially mobilized plane curve in the lower bound to Mises circle in the upper bound on the deviatoric plane, with an exponential curve on the meridian plane in principal stress space. Four material parameters in the strength criterion have their clear physical meanings and their determination approaches are also given. Four sets of true triaxial experimental results are compared with the modeling results of the proposed criterion. It shows that the proposed criterion is capable to capture the characteristics of yielding and failure and reasonably calculate the multiaxis strength of concrete materials. CE Database subject headings: Concrete; Material properties; Stress; Experimentation; Strength. Author keywords: Concrete; Strength theory; Non-linear; Intermediate principal stress; Mean principal stress; True triaxial experiment. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)EM.1943-7889.0000055