The Prediction of Mechanical and Deformation Properties of Concrete Using an Integrated Hierarchical Method of Structural and Finite Element Modeling

Accurate prediction of concrete mechanical and deformation behavior remains one of the major challenges in materials engineering and science. This study presents results from structural and finite element (FE) modeling, providing a prediction of the stress–strain state of hardened cement paste and concrete. It proposes a two-step method: first, develop an FE model for hardened cement paste from the monofractional structural model; second, develop an FE model for concrete by integrating deformation characteristics derived from the hardened cement paste model and interfacial transition zone (ITZ) parameters, calculated by the authors’ method. This study involved: designing structural models of hardened cement paste and concrete, constructing FE models based on these structures, and validating them by comparison with experimental data. The simulations used monodisperse structural and tetrahedral hinge–rod finite element models. The novelty of the method is the combination of simplified monofractional structural models and ITZ volume calculation using parameters for structural density and relative sizes of elements, which allows for the design of an FE model of concrete integrated with an FE model of hardened cement paste. The results confirm the high accuracy of the developed models for each concrete class in the range from C16/20 to C55/67, with deformation deviations not exceeding 6% and strength deviations not exceeding 10%. The authors’ principles of FE modeling for hardened cement paste and concrete were established.