The behaviour of an asphalt concrete structure subjected to severe loading, such as blast and impact loadings, is becoming critical for safety and anti-terrorist reasons. With the development of high-speed computational capabilities, it is possible to carry out the numerical simulation of an asphalt concrete structure subjected to blast or impact loading. In the simulation, the constitutive model plays a key role as the model defines the essential physical mechanisms of the material under different stress and loading conditions. In this paper, the key features of the Karagozian and Case concrete model (KCC) adopted in LSDYNA are evaluated and discussed. The formulations of the strength surfaces and the damage factor in the KCC model are verified. Both static and dynamic tests are used to determine the parameters of asphalt concrete in the KCC model. The modified damage factor is proposed to represent the higher failure strain that can improve the simulation of the behaviour of AC material. Furthermore, a series test of the asphalt concrete structure subjected to blast and impact loadings is conducted and simulated by using the KCC model. The simulation results are then compared with those from both field and laboratory tests. The results show that the use of the KCC model to simulate asphalt concrete structures can reproduce similar results as the field and laboratory test.

The thermomechanical coupling constitutive model of concrete is a critical subject for the theoretical investigation and numerical simulation of the mechanical behaviors of concrete members and structures at high temperature. This paper presents a thermomechanical coupling constitutive model for the description of the mechanical behaviors of concrete at different temperatures. The expression of the elastic strain increment is derived with the free energy function including the temperature variable. The expression of the plastic strain increment is derived from the yield function based on the Drucker–Prager strength criterion. The elastoplastic damage effect is included in this constitutive model. The damage variable is included in the yield function to consider the effect of the damage on the elastoplastic mechanical behaviors of concrete. The proposed constitutive model is validated by the comparison of the simulation results of the uniaxial compression tests of concrete at different temperatures with the corresponding test results. The simulation results accord well with the test results at different temperatures. This indicates that the proposed constitutive model can characterize the mechanical behaviors of concrete at different temperatures with considerable accuracy. The proposed constitutive model was applied to simulate an axially compressive concrete column. The simulation results are consistent with the essential mechanical response behaviors of concrete members at different temperatures.

Dynamic compressive tests of sand under passive confining pressure were carried out using a Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) setup. The dynamic response, energy dissipation and particle-breaking behaviors of sand subjected to high-speed impact were investigated. Sand specimens with moisture contents of 0%, 2%, 4%, 8%, 10% and 12% and relative densities of 0.1, 0.5 and 0.9 were prepared. The variation in the strain rate was controlled between 90 s⁻¹ and 500 s⁻¹. The specimens were confined in a designed sleeve to create passive confining pressure. The experimental results show that the sand specimens were extremely sensitive to the strain rate. When the strain rate was less than 400 s⁻¹, the stress and strain of the specimens increased with the increase in the strain rate but decreased when the strain rate exceeded 400 s⁻¹. The peak strain and peak stress increased with the increase in the relative density. Particle breakage was aggravated with the strain-rate increase. Compared with the specimen without water, the relative breakage rate of the specimen with a moisture content of 12% decreased by 30.53% when the strain rate was about 95 s⁻¹ and by 25.44% when the strain rate was about 460 s⁻¹. The analysis of energy dissipation revealed the essential cause of sand destruction. The specific energy absorption rate increased with the increases in the initial relative density and moisture content.

Engineered cementitious composites (ECC) used as runway pavement material may suffer different strain rate loads such as aircraft taxiing, earthquakes, crash impacts, or blasts. In this paper, the dynamic tensile behaviors of the steel grid-polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) fiber and KEVLAR fiber-reinforced ECC were investigated by dynamic tensile tests at medium strain rates. The mixture was designed with different volume fractions of fibers and layer numbers of steel grids to explore the reinforcement effectiveness on the dynamic performance of the ECC. The volume fractions of these two types of fibers were 0%, 0.5%, 1%, 1.5%, and 2% of the ECC matrix, respectively. The layer numbers of the steel grid were 0, 1, and 2. The dynamic tensile behaviors of the PVA fiber and the KEVLAR fiber-reinforced ECC were also compared. The experimental results indicate that under dynamic tensile loads, the PVA-ECC reveals a ductile and multi-cracking failure behavior, and the KEVLAR-ECC displays a brittle failure behavior. The addition of the PVA fiber and the KEVLAR fiber can improve the tensile peak stress of the ECC matrix. For the specimens A0.5, A1, A1.5, and A2.0, the peak stress increases by 84.3%, 149.4%, 209.6%, and 237.3%, respectively, compared to the matrix specimen. For the specimens K0.5, K1, K1.5, and K2, the peak stress increases by about 72.3%, 147.0%, 195.2%, and 263.9%, respectively, compared to the matrix specimen. The optimum fiber volume content is 1.5% for the PVA-ECC and the KEVLAR-ECC. The KEVLAR-ECC can supply a higher tensile strength than the PVA-ECC, but the PVA-ECC reveals more prominent deformation capacity and energy dissipation performance than the KEVLAR-ECC. Embedding steel grid can improve the tensile peak stress and the energy dissipation of the ECC matrix. For the strain rate of 10⁻³ s⁻¹, the peak stress of the A0.5S1 and A0.5S2 specimens increases by about 49.1% and 105.7% compared to the A0.5 specimen, and the peak stress of the K0.5S1 and K0.5S2 specimens increases by about 61.5% and 95.8%, respectively, compared to the K0.5 specimen.

An engineered cementitious composite (ECC) was reinforced with a steel grid and fibers to improve its tensile strength and ductility. A series of tensile tests have been carried out to investigate the quasi-static tensile capacity of the reinforced ECC. The quasi-static tensile capacities of reinforced ECCs with different numbers of steel-grid layers, types of fibers (Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) fiber, KEVLAR fiber, and polyethylene (PE) fiber), and volume fractions of fibers have been tested and compared. It is indicated by the test results that: (1) On the whole, the steel grid-PVA fiber and steel grid-KEVLAR fiber reinforced ECCs have high tensile strength and considerable energy dissipation performance, while the steel grid-PE fiber reinforced ECC exhibits excellent ductility. (2) The ultimate tensile strength of the reinforced ECC can be improved by the addition of steel grids. The maximal peak tensile stress increase is about 50–95% or 140–190% by adding one layer or two layers of steel grid, respectively. (3) The ultimate tensile strength of the reinforced ECC can be enhanced with the increase of fiber volume fraction. For a certain kind of fiber, a volume fraction between 1.5% and 2% grants the reinforced ECC the best tensile strength. Near the ultimate loading point, the reinforced ECC exhibits strain hardening behavior, and its peak tensile stress increases considerably. The energy dissipation performance of the reinforced ECC can also be remarkably enhanced by such an increase in fiber volume fraction. (4) The ductility of the steel grid-PVA fiber reinforced ECC can be improved by the addition of steel grids and the increase of fiber volume fraction. The ductility of the steel grid-KEVLAR fiber reinforced ECC can be improved by the addition of steel grids alone. The ductility and energy dissipation performance of the steel grid-PE fiber reinforced ECC can be improved with the increase of fiber volume fraction alone. A mechanical model for the quasi-static initial and ultimate tensile strength of the steel grid-fiber reinforced ECC is proposed. The model is validated by the test data from the quasi-static tension experiments on the steel grid-PE fiber reinforced ECC.