Representative volume elements for the analysis of concrete like materials by computational homogenization

The problem of devising an appropriate Representative Volume Element (RVE) for the analysis of concrete-like-materials is throughly discussed in the range of the elastic behavior. To this end, assuming concrete as a two-phases material (mortar and aggregates), the geometry of the RVE is automatically generated on the basis of spherical or polyhedral aggregates by proposing a new algorithm for the case of the polyhedral shapes. The associated apparent macro-response is evaluated by computational homogenization and its feasible use is pointed out. The subsequent numerical experimentation aims to highlight the influence of the relevant parameters such as the RVE’s size, aggregates shapes, constitutive moduli of the constituents and applied boundary conditions on the evaluation of the RVE’s macro-response.