Development of a Glass Microbubble-based Lightweight Strain Hardening Cementitious Composite (LW-SHCC): Experiment and Numerical Simulation

In this study, lightweight strain hardening cementitious composites (LW-SHCC) was developed through mix proportion design and experimental tests. The modified Andreasen and Andersen (A&A) model was applied for dry materials mixture proportioning and micromechanics for the fiber-reinforced composites were applied for designing the materials achieving multiple cracking and strain hardening characteristics. Four types of 3MTM glass microbubbles were considered as lightweight aggregates to achieve the lightweight of the composites. The designed SHCC mixes were tested in the lad, including tensile test and compressive test, to optimize the mixture design of the SHCC. Results showed the developed LW-SHCC exhibited tensile strain capacities of 3.05%-4.07% at the densities of 1.20-1.44 g/cm3. A numerical simulation was conducted to predict the tensile behavior of LW-SHCC based on the micromechanics model, which can simulate the initial and peak values of stress and strain of SHCC materials. Simulation results indicated that the tensile response could be reasonably predicted using the proposed numerical model and glass microbubbles acting as artificial flaws were an ideal material to develop the tensile strain hardening and multiple cracking behavior of the composites.