Experiment and phase-field simulation of uniaxial compression of ultra-high-performance concrete with coarse aggregate

Ultra-high-performance concrete with coarse aggregate (UHPC-CA) is a newly developed material. To explore the influence of aggregate volume fraction and maximum aggregate particle size on the compressive strength of UHPC-CA, a batch of UHPC-CA numerical samples as well as some experiments is carried out. The phase-field method is introduced to simulate the uniaxial compressive strength, and the simulation results show good agreement with experimental results. Both the simulation results and experiment results show that the compressive strength decreases with the aggregate volume fraction and increases with the maximum aggregate particle size. A size effect model of UHPC-CA is established by using its aggregate volume fraction and the maximum aggregate particle size.