Fatigue deterioration of quasi-brittle materials

In this work, the fatigue deterioration of the quasi-brittle materials under cyclic tension is investigated both theoretically and experimentally by considering concrete as a specific example. The deterioration relates to the total strain, residual strain and Young's modulus are found to evolve in a three-stage process during the lifetime. A novel theoretical approach, namely, a fiber bundle-plastic chain model, is introduced to explain these behaviors. This model captures the major microscopic mechanisms of the fatigue deterioration of quasi-brittle materials, and provides a good agreement with the experimental findings.