Mesoscale investigation on failure behavior of reinforced concrete slab subjected to projectile impact

The mesoscale components of concrete have a great influence on its mechanical performance, and thus the mesoscale investigation on failure behavior of reinforced concrete slab subjected to projectile impact has an important significance to accurately predict the impact resistance of structures. In this paper, a fast and parallel modeling method based on the Voronoi technique is proposed to establish the 3D mesoscale model of reinforced concrete, including the arranging nuclei method and adding reinforcement method, and the efficiency and success rate of arranging nuclei are analyzed. Then, the erosion criterion considering the coupling of damage and maximum principle strain is introduced to capture the tensile failure behavior of concrete, and the perforation simulations under impact velocities ranging from 434.0m/s to 1058.0m/s are conducted to verify the accuracy and reliability of the proposed model. The numerical results show good agreements with the experimental and theoretical results, which demonstrates that the mesoscale model of reinforced concrete combined with this erosion criterion can more precisely and visually predict the cratering, scabbing and cracking phenomena. Furthermore, the effects of mortar strength, aggregate strength and failure strength of tiebreak contact on the impact resistance of reinforced concrete are obtained.