Stiffness prediction of polymer concrete using micromechanical approach

In this paper, the effective elastic modulus of polymer concrete (PC) is estimated using a new micro-scale model. A realistic two-dimensional representative volume element (RVE) has been used to represent PC microstructure. The RVE is modeled in Digimat software and consists of two phases: silica aggregate and epoxy matrix. Three types of boundary conditions, i.e., Dirichlet, periodic and mixed, are considered for RVE models. Finite element results are first compared with Mori-Tanaka (M-T) and double inclusion (DI) methods. Then, the influences of aggregates distribution and volume fraction on the overall stiffness of PC are investigated under uniaxial compression loading. In order to assess the micromechanical RVE model, standard cylindrical specimens of PC are manufactured and tested.