Nanoparticle simulations of logarithmic creep and microprestress relaxation in concrete and other disordered solids

TL;DR

This paper uses nanoparticle simulations to explore the origins of logarithmic creep and microprestress relaxation in concrete, linking nanoscale interactions to macroscopic creep behavior and offering insights for material engineering.

Contribution

It introduces a simple nanoparticle model that connects nanostructure and chemistry to creep and relaxation phenomena in disordered solids, extending Bažant's microprestress theory.

Findings

Logarithmic creep and microprestress relaxation emerge from generic deformation kinetics.

Simulated microprestresses match magnitudes observed in Bažant's theory.

The model provides a pathway to engineer creep behavior in concrete.

Abstract

Ba\v{z}ant's microprestress theory relates the logarithmic basic creep of concrete to power-law relaxation of heterogeneous eigenstresses at the nanoscale. However, the link between material chemistry, nanostructure, and microprestress relaxation, is not understood. To approach this, we use a simple model of harmonically interacting, packed nanoparticles, relaxing with and without external stress. Microprestresses are related to per-particle virial stress heterogeneities. Simulation results show that logarithmic creep and power-law microprestress relaxation emerge from generic deformation kinetics in disordered systems, which can occur in various materials and at various scales. When the interactions are matched to some mechanical properties of C--S--H at the 100 nm scale, the predicted microprestresses have similar magnitude as in Ba\v{z}ant's theory. The ability of our simulations to quantitatively link stress relaxation with nanostructure and chemistry-dependent interactions, provides a pathway to better characterise, extrapolate, and even engineer the creep behaviour of traditional and new concretes.