Numerical and experimental investigation into the fatigue behavior of plain concrete

Fatigue of concrete has received considerable attention in the last 15 years. The investigations, however, have been mainly phenomenological. Therefore, the knowledge about the cause and mechanism of concrete fatigue is still limited. This paper reports about a research project in which fatigue of concrete is studied by applying nonlinear fracture mechanics. With a description of the crack cyclic behavior of concrete, crack growth could be studied numerically. Qualitatively promising results have been found. A number of fatigue experiments are described in which the development of deformations with the number of cycles is followed as accurately as possible. For that purpose, a data-acquisition system was specially designed.