| This dissertation focuses on designing Engineered Cementitious Composite (ECC) to achieve high performance seismic resistant elements. To attain this goal, three major tasks have been accomplished.;Task 1 aims at achieving new ECCs involving low cost fiber, which often involve fiber rupture in crack bridging, thus named as "Fiber Rupture Type ECC". Achieving the new ECC requires a new practical and comprehensive composite design theory. For this theory, single fiber behavior was first investigated. Specifically, fiber rupture in composite and chemical bond in fiber/matrix interface were experimentally examined and mathematically modeled. Then this model for single fiber behavior was implemented into a proposed bridging law, a theoretical model for relationship between fiber bridging stress of composite and Crack Opening Displacement (COD). This new bridging law was finally employed to establish a new composite design theory.;Task 2 was initiated to facilitate structural interpretation of ECC's material behavior investigated in Task 1. For this purpose, uniaxial tensile behavior, one of the most important ECC's properties, was theoretically characterized with stress-strain relation from micromechanics view point. As a result, a theory is proposed to express ECC's tensile stress-strain relation in terms of micromechanics parameters of composites, such as bond strengths.;Task 3 primarily demonstrates an integrated design scheme for ductile seismic elements that covers from micromechanics in single fiber level to structural design tool, such as with non-linear FEM analysis. The significance of this design scheme is that the influences of ECC's microstructure on element's structural performance is quantitatively captured. This means that a powerful tool is obtained for tailoring constitutive micromechanics parameters in order to maximize structural performance of elements. While the tool is still preliminary, completing this tool in future studies will enable one to optimally exploit the performance of constitutive materials, thus resulting in maximum structural safety with reasonable cost. |
