Calcium hydroxide carbonation processes were studied to investigate the potential for abiotic soil improvement. Different mixtures of common soil constituents such as sand, clay, and granite were mixed with a calcium hydroxide slurry and carbonated at approximately 860 psi. While the carbonation was successful and calcite formation was strong on sample exteriors, a 4 mm passivating boundary layer effect was observed, impeding the carbonation process at the center. XRD analysis was used to characterize the extent of carbonation, indicating extremely poor carbonation and therefore CO2 penetration inside the visible boundary. The depth of the passivating layer was found to be independent of both time and choice of aggregate. Less than adequate strength was developed in carbonated trials due to formation of small, weakly-connected crystals, shown with SEM analysis. Additional research, especially in situ analysis with thermogravimetric analysis would be useful to determine the causation of poor carbonation performance. This technology has great potential to substitute for certain Portland cement applications if these issues can be addressed.

The concept of Creep is a term used to define the tendency of stressed materials to develop an increasing strain through time under a sustained load, thus having an increase in deflection or having an elongation with time in relation to the short term strain. While the subject of compression creep of concrete is well developed, use of concrete under tension loads has been limited at best due to brittleness of concrete. However with the advent of using fiber reinforced concrete, more and more applications where concrete is expected to carry tensile loads due to incorporation of fibers is gaining popularity. While the creep behavior of concrete in tension is important, the main case of the study is what happened when the concrete that is cracked in service is subjected to sustained loads causing creep. The relationship of opening cracks under these conditions are of utmost importance especially when the serviceability criteria is addressed. Little work has been reported in literature on the long-term behavior of FRC under sustained flexural loadings. The main objective of this study is to investigate the Long Term Flexural Behavior of Pre-Cracked Fiber Reinforced Beams under Sustained Loads. The experimental reports document the effect of loading and temperature on the creep characteristics of concrete. A variety of study has been carried out for the different responses generated by the creep tests based on factors like effect of temperature and humidity, effect of fiber content, effect of fiber type, and effect of different loading levels.

The Creep Testing Experimental Methodology is divided into three main parts which includes: (1) The Pre-cracking Partial Fracture Test; (2) Creep Test; (3) Post Creep Full Fracture Test. The magnitude of load applied to a specific specimen during creep testing was based on the results of average residual strength (ARS) tests, determined using EN14651. Specimens of the synthetic FRC mixture were creep tested at loads nominally equivalent to 30% and 50% of the FR1 value. The creep tests are usually continued until a steady Time versus CMOD response was obtained for the specimen signifying its presence in the secondary stage of creep. The creep recovery response is generated after unloading the specimen from the creep set up and later a full fracture test is carried out to obtain the complete post creep response of the beam under flexure.

The behavior of the Creep Coefficient versus Time response has been studied using various existing models like the ACI 209-R 92 Model and the CEB-FIP Model. Basic and hybrid rheological viscoelastic models have also been used in order to generate the material behavior response. A study has been developed in order to understand the applicability of various viscoelastic models for obtaining the material response of real materials. An analytical model for predicting the Flexural Behavior of FRC under sustained creep loads is presented at the end. This model helps generate the stress strain and Moment Curvature response of FRC beams when subjected to creep loads post initial cracking

Pultrusion manufacturing technique stands at the forefront for efficient production of continuous, uniform concrete composites for use in large scale structural applications. High volume and low labor, among other benefits such as improved impregnation and better sample consistency, stand as some of the crucial advances found in automated pultrusion. These advantages introduce textile reinforced concrete (TRC) composites as a potential surrogate for wood, light gauge steel, and other common structural materials into an ever changing and broadening market of industrial grade structural sections. With the potential modifications of textile geometry, textile type, section geometry, and connection type, the options presented by TRC sections seem nearly boundless. Automated pultrusion presents the ability to manufacture many different TRC composite types in at a quickened rate opening up a new field of study of structural materials.

The objective of this study centered on two studies including the development of an automated pultrusion system for the manufacturing of TRC composites and ultimately the assessment of composites created with the pultrusion technique and their viability as a relevant structural construction material. Upon planning, fabrication, and continued use of an automated pultrusion system in Arizona State University’s Structures Lab, an initial, comparative study of polypropylene microfiber composites was conducted to assess fiber reinforced concrete composites, manufactured with Filament Winding Technique, and textile reinforced concrete composites, manufactured with Automated Pultrusion Technique, in tensile and flexural mechanical response at similar reinforcement dosages. A secondary study was then conducted to measure the mechanical behavior of carbon, polypropylene, and alkali-resistant glass TRC composites and explore the response of full scale TRC structural shapes, including angle and channel sections. Finally, a study was conducted on the connection type for large scale TRC composite structural sections in tension and compression testing.

The main objective of this study is to investigate the effect of polypropylene fiber morphology on the tensile response of cementitious composites. Two proprietary polypropylene fibers manufactured by BASF – MAC 2200CB, a crimped monofilament macro fiber and MF40, a bundled multi filament polypropylene made up of 500 filaments,40-micron diameter each were compared. The stiff structure and crimped geometry of MAC 2200 CB was studied in comparison with the multifilament MF40, which provide a higher surface area and a bundled fiber effect. Uniaxial tensile tests were performed on individual fibers to study fiber strength and failure pattern at three different gage lengths. The interaction of these 2 fibers with cement matrix was studied under varying strain rate, embedded fiber length and matrix mixes by a series of quassi - static fiber pullout tests. Unidirectional filament wound composite laminates were manufactures with the two fibers and only MF40 woven textiles were used to manufacture MF40 textile reinforced composites. The mechanical behavior of polypropylene fiber and textile reinforced cementitious composites subjected to static tensile loading with the effects of fiber type and dosage, textile weave and dosage, matrix formulations, processing techniques etc. is studied. Evolution of distributed cracking mechanism and local strain fields was documented using digital image correlation (DIC) and correlated with the tensile response and stiffness degradation. VIC 3D-7, commercial software developed by Correlated Solutions, Inc. was used to run the DIC analysis for the tensile tests on laminates. The DIC technique was further used for automated determination of crack density, crack spacing, and characterizing damage evolution.

Sustainable materials and methods have achieved a pivotal role in the research plethora of the new age due to global warming. Cement production is responsible in contributing to 5% of global CO2 emissions. Complete replacement of cement by alkaline activation of aluminosilicate waste materials such as slag and fly ash is a major advancement towards reducing the adverse impacts of cement production. Comprehensive research has been done, to understand the optimized composition and hydration products. The focus of this dissertation is to understand the multiscale behavior ranging from early age properties, fundamental material structure, fracture and crack resistance properties, durability responses and alternative activation methods to existing process.

The utilization of these materials has relied primarily on the dual benefits of reduced presence in landfills and cost. These have also proven to yield a higher service life as opposed to conventional ordinary portland cement (OPC) concrete due to an enhanced microstructure. The use of such materials however has not been readily acceptable due to detrimental early age behavior. The influence of design factors is studied to understand the reaction mechanism. Silicon polymerization at the molecular level is studied to understand the aluminosilicate interactions which are responsible for prevention of any leaching of ions. A comparative study between fly ash and slag binders is carried out to evaluate the stable states of sodium, aluminum and silicon in both these binders, since the likelihood of the sodium ions leaching out is high.

Compressive and flexural strength have been reported in previous literature, but the impact of crack resistance was unevaluated from an approach of characterizing the fracture process zone. Alternative routes of activation are explored with an intent to reduce the high alkalinity by use of neutral salts such as sodium sulfate. High volume OPC replacement by both class C and F fly ash is performed to evaluate the differences in hydration phase formation responsible for its pore refinement and strength. Spectroscopic studies have also allowed to study the fundamental material structure. Durability studies are also performed on these samples to understand the probability external sulfate attacks as opposed to OPC mixes.

Tall building developments are spreading across the globe at an ever-increasing rate (www.ctbuh.org). In 1982, the number of ‘tall buildings’ in North America was merely 1,701. This number rose to 26,053, in 2006. The global number of buildings, 200m or more in height, has risen from 286 to 602 in the last decade alone. This dissertation concentrates on design optimization of such, about-to-be modular, structures by implementing AISC 2010 design requirements. Along with a discussion on and classification of lateral load resisting systems, a few design optimization cases are also being studied. The design optimization results of full scale three dimensional buildings subject to multiple design criteria including stress, serviceability and dynamic response are discussed. The tool being used for optimization is GS-USA Frame3D© (henceforth referred to as Frame3D). Types of analyses being verified against a strong baseline of Abaqus 6.11-1, are stress analysis, modal analysis and buckling analysis.

The provisions in AISC 2010 allows us to bypass the limit state of flexural buckling in compression checks with a satisfactory buckling analysis. This grants us relief from the long and tedious effective length factor computations. Besides all the AISC design checks, an empirical equation to check beams with high shear and flexure is also being enforced.

In this study, we present the details of a tool that can be useful in design optimization - finite element modeling, translating AISC 2010 design code requirements into components of the FE and design optimization models. A comparative study of designs based on AISC 2010 and fixed allowable stresses, (regardless of the shape of cross section) is also being carried out.

Composite materials are widely used in various structural applications, including within the automotive and aerospace industries. Unidirectional composite layups have replaced other materials such as metals due to composites’ high strength-to-weight ratio and durability. Finite-element (FE) models are actively being developed to model response of composite systems subjected to a variety of loads including impact loads. These FE models rely on an array of measured material properties as input for accuracy. This work focuses on an orthotropic plasticity constitutive model that has three components – deformation, damage and failure. The model relies on the material properties of the composite such as Young’s modulus, Poisson’s ratio, stress-strain curves in the principal and off-axis material directions, etc. This thesis focuses on two areas important to the development of the FE model – tabbing of the test specimens and data processing of the tests used to generate the required stress-strain curves. A comparative study has been performed on three candidate adhesives using double lap-shear testing to determine their effectiveness in composite specimen tabbing. These tests determined the 3M DP460 epoxy performs best in shear. The Loctite Superglue with 80% the ultimate stress of the 3M DP460 epoxy is acceptable when test specimens have to be ready for testing within a few hours. JB KwikWeld is not suitable for tabbing. In addition, the Experimental Data Processing (EDP) program has been improved for use in post-processing raw data from composites test. EDP has improved to allow for complete processing with the implementation of new weighted least squares smoothing options, curve averaging techniques, and new functionality for data manipulation.

Composite materials are now beginning to provide uses hitherto reserved for metals in structural systems such as airframes and engine containment systems, wraps for repair and rehabilitation, and ballistic/blast mitigation systems. These structural systems are often subjected to impact loads and there is a pressing need for accurate prediction of deformation, damage and failure. There are numerous material models that have been developed to analyze the dynamic impact response of polymer matrix composites. However, there are key features that are missing in those models that prevent them from providing accurate predictive capabilities. In this dissertation, a general purpose orthotropic elasto-plastic computational constitutive material model has been developed to predict the response of composites subjected to high velocity impacts. The constitutive model is divided into three components – deformation model, damage model and failure model, with failure to be added at a later date. The deformation model generalizes the Tsai-Wu failure criteria and extends it using a strain-hardening-based orthotropic yield function with a non-associative flow rule. A strain equivalent formulation is utilized in the damage model that permits plastic and damage calculations to be uncoupled and capture the nonlinear unloading and local softening of the stress-strain response. A diagonal damage tensor is defined to account for the directionally dependent variation of damage. However, in composites it has been found that loading in one direction can lead to damage in multiple coordinate directions. To account for this phenomena, the terms in the damage matrix are semi-coupled such that the damage in a particular coordinate direction is a function of the stresses and plastic strains in all of the coordinate directions. The overall framework is driven by experimental tabulated temperature and rate-dependent stress-strain data as well as data that characterizes the damage matrix and failure. The developed theory has been implemented in a commercial explicit finite element analysis code, LS-DYNA®, as MAT213. Several verification and validation tests using a commonly available carbon-fiber composite, Toyobo’s T800/F3900, have been carried and the results show that the theory and implementation are efficient, robust and accurate.

As the demand of sustainable construction materials increases, use of fibers and textiles as partial or full reinforcement in concrete members present a tremendous opportunity. Proper characterization techniques and design guides for hybrid materials are therefore needed. This dissertation presents a comprehensive study on serviceability-based design of strain softening and strain hardening materials. Multiple experimental procedures are developed to document the nature of single crack localization and multiple cracking mechanisms in various fiber and fabric reinforced cement-based composites. In addition, strain rate effects on the mechanical properties are examined using a high speed servo-hydraulic tension test equipment.

Significant hardening and degradation parameters such as stiffness, crack spacing, crack width, localized zone size are obtained from tensile tests using digital image correlation (DIC) technique. A tension stiffening model is used to simulate the tensile response that addresses the cracking and localization mechanisms. The model is also modified to simulate the sequential cracking in joint-free slabs on grade reinforced by steel fibers, where the lateral stiffness of slab and grade interface and stress-crack width response are the most important model parameters.

Parametric tensile and compressive material models are used to formulate generalized analytical solutions for flexural behaviors of hybrid reinforced concrete (HRC) that contains both rebars and fibers. Design recommendations on moment capacity, minimum reinforcement ratio etc. are obtained using analytical equations. The role of fiber in reducing the amount of conventional reinforcement is revealed. The approach is extended to T-sections and used to model Ultra High Performance Concrete (UHPC) beams and girders.

The analytical models are extended to structural members subjected to combined axial and bending actions. Analytical equations to address the P-M diagrams are derived. Closed-form equations that generate the interaction diagram of HRC section are presented which may be used in the design of multiple types of applications.

The theoretical models are verified by independent experimental results from literature. Reliability analysis using Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) is conducted for few design problems on ultimate state design. The proposed methodologies enable one to simulate the experiments to obtain material parameters and design structural members using generalized formulations.