The high-rate brittle microplane concrete model: Part I: bounding curves and quasi-static fit to material property data

This paper discusses a new constitutive model called the high-rate brittle microplane (HRBM) model and also presents the details of a new software package called the Virtual Materials Laboratory (VML). The VML software package was developed to address the challenges of fitting complex material models such as the HRBM model to material property test data and to study the behavior of those models under a wide variety of stress- and strain-paths. VML employs Continuous Evolutionary Algorithms (CEA) in conjunction with gradient search methods to create automatic fitting algorithms to determine constitutive model parameters. The VML code is used to fit the new HRBM model to a well-characterized conventional strength concrete called WES5000. Finally, the ability of the new HRBM model to provide high-fidelity simulations of material property experiments is demonstrated by comparing HRBM simulations to laboratory material property data.