Inthisreportanattemptismadetodescribeallstiffnessrelations

inanelementusingonerelationforuncracked,partiallycracked
andfully
crackedconcrete.Uncrackedconcretecanbemodelledasalinear
elastic
isotropicmaterial.Forsuchamaterialthestressstrainrelationis
given
bytheYoung'smodulusandthePoissons'sratio.Wewanttousejust
one
relationforuncrackedandcrackedconcrete,sowehavetotreatboth
the
fracturezoneandtheuncrackedsectionasacontinuum.Suchan
approach
iscalledthesmearedcrackconcept.

The shear softening is described by a

constant shear retention factor 62i with a value between 0.05 and 0.20.

Thetensionsofteningmodelisbasedonsofteningofthematerialin
the
fracturezone.Thisweakeningoftheconcretereducestheshear
sliding
stiffness.Toadapttheshearslidingstiffnessashearretention
factorB
isintroduced.Thisfactorvariesfrom1foruncrackedconcreteto0
for
fullycrackedconcretewithperfectlysmoothcrackfaces.
Theshearretentionfactorisafunctionoftheaggregateinterlock
mechanism
inthecracks
Inthesmearedcrackconceptthecrackwidthisrelatedtoanormal
strain
e.Theshearslidingdisplacementisrelatedtoasheardeformationy

sheardisplacement
crackwidths

Theshearslidingdisplacementisrelatedtoasheardeformationy
BothrelationsindicatethattheshearretentionfactorBisonlya
function
ofthe(smearedout)normalstraine.Aphysicalinterpretationof
the
mechanismofaggregateinterlock(seefigure3.1)learnsthatthesize
of
thecontactareasbetweenparticlesandmatrixisnotonlydepending
upon
thecrackwidthbutalsouponthesheardisplacement.Accordingto
this
conclusiontheshearretentionfactorBmustbeafunctionofbothe
andsheardeformationy

shearretentionfactormustincreasewithincreasingshear
displacement.