Behaviour of Strain-hardening Cement-based Composites (SHCC) under monotonic and cyclic tensile loading: Part 1 – Experimental investigations

This first part of the project at hand presents the results of experiments performed on a Strain-hardening Cement-based Composite (SHCC) in order to investigate the specific behaviour of such materials under monotonic and cyclic tensile loading. The testing programme included uniaxial tension tests on dumbbell specimens, tension tests on single fibres, single-fibre pullout tests, and optical investigations. All mechanical tests were performed under deformation-controlled loading regime. Optical investigations of the SHCC microstructure provided detailed insights into the failure mechanisms observed in the mechanical tests. The results obtained can serve as a reliable basis for the development of corresponding constitutive relationships relevant to SHCC. Since the modelling to be presented in the second part of this paper is based on a multi-scale approach, the experimental results are discussed in particular with respect to the identification and description of the determinant physical phenomena influencing material performance at different levels of observation.