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A stochastic damage model for evaluating

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Materials and Structures

DOI 10.1617/s11527-013-0111-8

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

A stochastic damage model for evaluating the internal

deterioration of concrete due to freezethaw action
An Duan Ye Tian Jian-Guo Dai
Wei-Liang Jin

Received: 9 August 2012 / Accepted: 29 May 2013

RILEM 2013

Abstract This paper presents a stochastic damage

model for evaluating the internal deterioration of
concrete due to freezethaw action, which involves
great uncertainty and randomness. In this model, the
structural element of concrete is discretized into
infinite microelements, whose lifetimes are assumed
to be independent random variables. Then expressions
for the mean and variance of the damage of concrete
are analytically derived. To calibrate the model
parameters, a series of freezethaw tests in water on
non-air-entrained concrete were conducted and backcalculation analyses were performed on the test results
of dynamic modulus. The reliability of the proposed
stochastic damage model is further validated through
comparisons with the results of 80 other existing test
specimens. The present model offers a theoretical
basis for exploring the statistical aspect of concrete
behavior during freezethaw.
Keywords Freezethaw action  Concrete 
Micro-level  Stochastic damage model

A. Duan  Y. Tian (&)  W.-L. Jin

College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Zhejiang
University, Hangzhou 310058, China
e-mail: cetianye@zju.edu.cn
J.-G. Dai
Department of Civil and Structural Engineering,
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom,
Kowloon, Hong Kong

1 Introduction
Frost damage is an important concern for concrete
infrastructures built in cold regions. There are two major
types of frost-induced concrete damage [7]: (1) the
internal micro-cracking and disruption of concrete
caused by frozen moisture, and (2) surface scaling,
which is local flaking or peeling of a finished surface as a
result of exposure to freeze and thawing [32]. The latter
is normally limited to the surface, whereas the former
leads to a substantial reduction in the mechanical
properties of concrete in terms of both its strength and
stiffness [24]. As a consequence, increasing attention
has been paid to the internal deterioration of concrete
due to frost damage over the past two decades. One of
the foci has been the modeling of the internal damage
evolution of concrete exposed to freezethaw action.
Attempts have been made to assess the frostinduced internal damage of concrete using both
empirical [21, 22] and theoretical [3, 8] approaches.
In all of these models, however, the internal damage is
expressed in terms of the loss of dynamic modulus of
elasticity. Fagerlund [8] developed his model based on
the critical degree of saturation theory, whereas Cai
[3] deployed a hydraulic hypothesis and fatigue
damage theory to describe the damage process.
Nevertheless, most of these existing models are
deterministic, and as such they cannot reflect the
highly stochastic nature of concrete.
Concrete is, by nature, a heterogeneous material,
mainly because of its composite components. Such

Materials and Structures

heterogeneity is also due to the physical and chemical

phenomena that occur during the manufacturing and
hardening of concrete and the micro-cracking that
results from drying and shrinkage. In addition, the
freezethaw damage of concrete is a very complicated
physical phenomenon that has not yet been fully
understood, despite the existence of various theories
explaining the mechanisms that lead to the damage.
When ice forms in the saturated pores of concrete,
tensile stresses are generated by the volumetric
increase (i.e., the water changes from a liquid to a
solid state) and the flow of water that is forced from the
pores [24]. These tensile stresses then cause the onset
and propagation of micro-cracks in the surrounding
concrete, resulting in the degradation of its mechanical
properties such as stiffness and strength. These
processes involve great uncertainty and randomness.
Therefore, it is more reasonable to adopt a stochastic
method rather than a deterministic one when studying
the frost damage evolution of concrete.
The stochastic method has long been adopted for
the durability assessment of concrete structures subjected to carbonation or chloride ingress (e.g., [4, 30,
31]). However, few stochastic models have been
developed to predict the service life of concrete
structures exposed to frost environments [9, 29]. In
Fagerlunds [9] model, the actual moisture content,
Sact, and the critical moisture content, SCR, in concrete
are treated as stochastic variables. The probability of
frost damage is then calculated by assuming a
triangular distribution for the probability density
function of Sact and SCR. Song and Ji [29] used the
Weibull distribution to analyze the reliability of frost
damage and to predict the residual life of concrete
after freezethaw exposure. Unfortunately, in these
two models, the damage evolution, which is a very
crucial indicator of the mechanical properties of
concrete under freezethaw action, is not discussed.
To evaluate the damage evolution of a brittle
material such as concrete, micromechanical modeling
is an effective approach. Because it not only provides
valuable insight into the damage evolution mechanisms of concrete at the micro-level, but also facilitates
a quantitative correlation between them and the macrolevel behavior of concrete. In the micromechanical
modeling approach, quantities such as stress, stiffness
and damage represent the average behavior of collective micro-level elements in the given domain. The
most extensively used stochastic micromechanical

method is the parallel element method, which was

derived and extended to predict the damage propagation of a structural element under monotonic loading
[13, 14, 17]. In the parallel element method, the
structural element is idealized as a sequence of
individual springs (i.e., microelements) joined in
parallel. The failure strength (or failure strain) of each
microelement is assumed to be a random variable. It is
worth mentioning that Guan et al. [10] proposed a
micromechanics-based model to evaluate the evolution of the average internal freezethaw concrete
damage. However, in their model they did not consider
the stochastic characteristics of the damage, which
have been widely revealed by experimental
observations.
This study aims to develop a stochastic damage
model for concrete subjected to freezethaw action
that features both stochastic and micromodeling
characteristics. An experimental test program was
conducted to calibrate the parameters deployed in the
stochastic damage model. In addition, the validity of
the model is further demonstrated through comparison
with an extensive testing database.

2 Theoretical background of the stochastic

damage model for concrete subjected to frost
2.1 Model concept and hypotheses
Concrete suffers from gradient damage when subjected to freezethaw action. Figure 1 represents the
two-dimensional plane of a structural concrete element with a square cross section. The entire square
concrete domain can be discretized into infinite
microelements with random lifetimes. The small,
solid block inside the square represents a microelement of concrete (Fig. 1) and is assumed to possess the
following characteristics:
Hypothesis 1 Each individual microelement has a
different lifetime, T. A microelement fails once the
duration of its exposure to freezethaw action, t,
exceeds its lifetime (i.e., t C T).
Hypothesis 2 The lifetimes of the microelements
are assumed to be independent random variables
following the three-parameter Weibull distribution,
which has the following cumulative distribution
function (CDF):

Materials and Structures

2.2 Damage evolution

2.2.1 Mean of the damage
The interior damage of the concrete element at an
exposure time t is represented by a random function
D(t) and can be defined as the ratio of the failed area to
the total area [16]:
ZZ
AD
1

H t  Tx; yds
3
Dt
A0 A0
X

Fig. 1 Idealized model of a concrete cross section

(
FT t

n
o
1  exp gt  cb
tc
0
t\c

in which g is the scale parameter, ([0); b is the shape

parameter, ([0); and c is the location parameter of the
distribution, ([0) [1].
Hypothesis 3 The parameters used in the CDF of the
Weibull distribution to describe the lifetime of each
microelement are dependent on its position (x, y). For
the sake of simplicity, it is assumed that all of the
microelements with the same minimum distance to the
boundary of the domain have identical parameters.
The Weibull distribution has proven its applicability in the lifetime prediction of concrete subjected to
freezethaw action [29]. In addition, the three parameters, g, b and c, provide the maximum flexibility in
defining different failure rates and thresholds for
different types of concrete exposed to various frost
environments. The shape parameter b can be regarded
as a constant because the shape of the probability
distribution function of the lifetime of concrete at all
locations should be similar if the concrete is treated as
a homogenous material. The parameter g indirectly
reflects the weakness of concrete because its increase
leads to an increase in the failure probability, whereas
the parameter c can be treated as the failure threshold
of concrete at a specific location because its increase
leads to a decrease in the failure probability. In the
following derivations, c is assumed to be inversely
proportional to g for mathematical simplicity:
c c1 =g
in which c1 is a positive constant.

where T(x, y) is the random lifetime at the position (x,

y); AD is the failed area; A0 is the total area of the cross
section; X is the entire domain in Fig. 1 and given by
X = {(x, y) |-a B x B a, -a B y B a}; and H is the
Heaviside function, which can be written as

0; x\0
H x
4
1; x  0
The mean damage computation is based on the
expected value of the damage function
lD t EDt
Z1 ZZ
1

A0
0

H t  sfT s ; x; ydsds

in which fT(s; x, y) is the probability density function

of the lifetime T of the microelement at the position (x,
y), s is the integral variable, and ds = dxdy. Given the
definition of H, Eq. (5) can be transformed to
ZZ
1
lD t
FT t ; x; ydxdy
6
A0
X
in which FT(t; x, y) = Prob [T (x, y) \ t] is the CDF for
the lifetime T of the microelement at the position (x, y).
According to hypothesis 3, in the shaded triangular
area of Fig. 1, the FT(t; x, y) for the lifetime is only
related to x (i.e., independent of y) and is given by FT(t;
x), and the integral over domain X [in Eq. (6)] are
equal to the 8 times the integral over the shaded
triangular area. Thus, Eq. (6) can be rewritten as
Z x
Z
Z
8 a
8 a
lD t
dx
FT t; xdy
xFT t; xdx
A0 0
A0 0
0
7
Based on hypothesis 2, FT(t; x) has the form
n
o
FT t; x 1  exp gt  cHt  cb

Materials and Structures

The concrete surface is more susceptible to freeze

thaw cycles (FTCs) for the following reasons [24]: (1)
higher freezable water since the outer layer of concrete
can become saturated more quickly when the surface
is covered with water; (2) increased water/cement
ratio due to bleeding; (3) earlier shrinkage-induced
microcracking due to water evaporation; and (4) lager
time difference during the FTCs. On the other hand, it
is noticed that FT(t; x) increases with the increase of g,
meaning a more vulnerable microelement and a
shorter lifetime. Thus, the distribution of g along x
direction is assumed to follow the expression (Fig. 1):
g g0 c2 x; 0  x  a

where g0 denotes the scale parameter at the center

point, and c2 represents the slope of the function g(x).
Both of these parameters are positive and serve as a
basis for the following derivation.
Substituting Eqs. (2) and (9) into (8) yields
FT t; x 1
( 

 exp  g0 c2 xt  c1 H t 

c1
g0 c 2 x

b )

10
Combining Eqs. (7) and (10), the expected value of
the damage can be obtained as follows:
2
lD t 1  2
a
( 
Za
0

c1
x exp  g0 c2 xt  c1 H t 
g 0 c2 x

b )
dx

11
Let
G x x
( 

exp  g0 c2 xt  c1 H t 

c1
g0 c 2 x

b )

12
Then
2
lD t 1  2
a

Za
Gxdx
0

13

2.2.2 Variance of the damage

The variance in the damage D (t) is


r2D t varDt E D2 t  l2D t

14

where E[D2(t)] is the mean square of the damage and is

given by


E D 2 t
Z1 Z1  ZZ
1
A20
0

ZZ
X

H t  s1 H t  s2 ds1 ds2
X

 fT s1 ; s2 ; s1 ; s2 ds1 ds2

15

in which fT(s1, s2, s1, s2) is the joint probability density

function of the two random variables, T(s1) and T(s1),
at the positions of s1 (x1, y1) and s2 (x2, y2),
respectively. The expansion of Eq. (15) yields


1
E D 2 t 2
A0

ZZ

ZZ
X

FT t; t; s1 ; s2 ds1 ds2

16

where FT(s1, s2, s1, s2) = Prob [T(s1) B s1 \

T(s2) B s2] = the joint distribution function of the
random variables T(s1) and T(s1).
Eqs. (14) and (16) yield the variance of the damage
parameter
ZZ ZZ
1
r2D t 2
FT t; t; s1 ; s2 ds1 ds2  l2D t
A0
X
X
17
Lee [15] developed a potentially useful bivariate
distribution for which the marginal distributions are
three-parameter Weibull distributions. Its survival
function is given by
F t1 ; t2 PT1 [ t1 ; T2 [ t2
n n
exp  g1 t1  c1 H t1  c1 b=r
or o
g2 t2  c2 H t2  c2 b=r

18

where the parameter r measures the conditional

association of T1and T2, and 0 \ r B 1.
Thus the joint distribution function FT(s1, s2, s1, s2)
can be rewritten as

Materials and Structures

F t1 ; t2 PT1  t1 ; T2  t2
n
o
1  exp g1 t1  c1 H t1  c1 b
n
o
 exp g2 t2  c2 H t2  c2 b
n n
exp  g1 t1  c1 H t1  c1 b=r
or o
g2 t2  c2 H t2  c2 b=r
19
Substituting Eqs. (5) and (19) into (17) leads to
r2D t

ZZ

ZZ

n n
exp  g1 t  c1 H t  c1 b=r
X
X
or o
g2 t  c2 H t  c2 b=r
ds1 ds2  1  lD t2
1
A20

Although the above derivation on the stochastic

damage of concrete is based on a square section, the
method is generic and would be suitable for sections
with other arbitrary shapes. In addition this approach
could be served as a basic framework for further
development, and may be expected to be applicable to
concretes with different constituents, but only if the
corresponding parameters g0, b, c1, c2 and r are
appropriately calibrated. Nevertheless, it should be
noted that the model has been derived based on some
hypotheses and simplifications. Thus, further study is
required and will be discussed in Sect. 4.

3 Model calibration and validation

20
3.1 Freezethaw tests

2.3 Numerical approximation

Because the antiderivative of the function G(x) in Eq.
(13) cannot be explicitly obtained, a numerical method
is applied here to approximate the definite integral
Ra
0 Gxdx. According to the trapezoidal rule (Burden
2004), the domain [0, a] is discretized into n equally
spaced panels and the approximation to this integral
becomes
"
#
Za
n1
a G0 Ga X
a

G x 
G i
21
n
2
n
i1
0

When n tends toward infinity, the numerical results

approach illimitably to the true value of the integral.
Therefore, in the numerical analysis, the expected
value of the damage has the form
"
#
n1

2 a G0 Ga X
a
lD t 1  2

22
G i
a n
2
n
i1
Similarly, the variance of the damage parameter
can be obtained as
r2D t

n X
n
1X
Kij  1  lD t2
n4 i1 j1

in which Kij has the form

n n
Kij exp  gi t  ci H t  ci b=r
 
 
b=r o r o
gj t  c j H t  c j
where gi = g0 ?c2(2i-1)a/2/n and ci = c1/gi.

23

24

An experimental program was conducted to calibrate

the micromechanical parameters deployed in the abovedescribed stochastic damage model. In this program,
four groups of non-air-entrained concrete prismatic
specimens (100 mm 9 100 mm 9 400 mm) were prepared with water to cement (w/c) ratios of 0.40, 0.45,
0.55 and 0.60. Each group consisted of three identical
specimens. The proportions of the concrete mixes are
presented in Table 1. In each mix, natural river sand and
crushed gravel with particle sizes varying from 5 mm to
16 mm were used as the fine and coarse aggregates,
respectively. The #425 (i.e., Chinese Standard) ordinary
Portland cement was used and its chemical compositions are given in Table 2.
All of the specimens were demolded 48 h after the
casting and cured for 7 days in water, followed by
more curing in an air-conditioned laboratory. Before
the freezethaw tests, all of the specimens were again
immersed in water with a temperature of about 20 C
for 4 days to maximize damage accumulation during
the freezethaw cycling tests. At the age of 28 days, the
concrete specimens submitted to rapid FTCs in water
were tested in accordance with the Chinese Standard
Test Method for the Durability of Normal Concrete
[11], which is almost the same as the Procedure A of
ASTM C666-92, with the exception that the freeze
thaw testing begins when the concrete is 14 days old in
the latter case. Figure 2 illustrates the freezethaw test
setup. Each FTC consisted of a temperature decrease
from 8 to -17 C, followed by a temperature increase
to 8 C within about 3 h.

Materials and Structures

Table 1 Mix proportions
and test results

Group code

F40

F45

F55

F60

w/c

0.40

0.45

0.55

0.60

Mix proportions (kg/m3)

Cement

Fine
aggregate

Coarse
aggregate

Water

466

653

1089

187

433

587

360

1139

647

305

1201

720

1196

195

198

183

D
D1

D2

D3

25

0.049

0.057

0.046

50

0.134

0.191

0.138

75

0.140

0.211

0.168

100

0.207

0.305

0.225

125

0.254

0.344

0.269

150

0.317

0.444

0.331

200

0.521

0.659

0.539

225

0.550

0.664

0.580

250

0.554

0.699

0.636

25

0.073

0.054

0.056

50

0.141

0.095

0.106

75

0.235

0.143

0.186

100

0.412

0.281

0.336

125

0.515

0.377

0.440

150
10

0.648
0.038

0.506
0.047

0.544
0.029

20

0.134

0.200

0.149

30

0.204

0.237

0.183

40

0.257

0.335

0.266

50

0.403

0.493

0.370

60

0.425

0.539

0.407

70

0.462

0.607

0.437

80

0.551

0.697

0.510

10

0.112

0.092

0.146

20

0.406

0.347

0.429

30

0.463

0.443

0.540

35

0.486

0.529

0.605

45

0.676

0.750

0.802

50

0.749

0.772

0.843

Table 2 Chemical compositions of the cement used (%, by weight)

Component

SiO2

Al2O3

Fe2O3

CaO

MgO

SO3

Cl-

Loss on ignition

Cement

28.28

5.42

3.11

55.95

1.63

2.06

0.014

2.5

During the test, the average internal damage was

evaluated using the relative dynamic modulus of
elasticity (RDM) from the fundamental transverse
frequency data [11]. The total number of FTCs and the
frequency of RDM measurement depended on the
specimens deterioration rates. For the specimens in

Group F45 (i.e., with a w/c ratio of 0.45), the RDM

was measured once every 25 FTCs until 150 FTCs.
However, for the specimens in Group F60 (i.e., with a
w/c ratio of 0.6), the RDM was measured more
frequently (i.e., at 0, 10, 20, 30, 35, 45 and 50 cycles)
because the frost damage was much more severe due

Materials and Structures

Fig. 2 Freezethaw test
setup

to the high w/c ratio used in this group. The freeze

thaw tests were stopped once the drop of RDM of
elasticity was larger than 0.6. The information for the
other two groups is included in Table 1.
3.2 Damage evaluation
The dynamic modulus of elasticity describes the
deformation resistance of concrete under impulsive
loads. The dynamic modulus of elasticity is
approximately equal to the initial tangent modulus
[20], and therefore is larger than the static modulus
of elasticity. According to Petersen [23], the former
is about 1.35 times the latter. The relative drop in
the dynamic modulus of elasticity can be treated as
the extent of the internal damage of concrete, as
follows:
D1

Ed
E0

25

where Ed and E0 denote the dynamic modulus of

elasticity of concrete after and before FTCs, respectively. Ed/E0 is the RDM.
Table 1 presents a summary of the values of D for
each specimen after freezethaw exposure. Figure 3
presents the increase in the average damage lD with
the number of FTCs N, where lD is the average
damage of three identical specimens. These test results
were reliably obtained and are deemed to be suitable
for the following model development.

Fig. 3 Mean damage versus number of FTCs: experimental

results and model predictions

3.3 Calibration of the micromechanical

parameters
A multiple regression method [2] was deployed using
Matlab to calibrate the micromechanical parameters in
the stochastic model, as presented in Sect. 2. The
number of FTCs, N, was used instead of the variable
t in Eq. (12). Figure 4 presents the flowchart for
regressing the values of g0, b, c1, c2 and r. The initial
values of the five parameters were set at 0.002, 1.4,
0.02, 0.02 and 0.7, respectively. The analyses reveal
that the parameters b, c2 and r changed very little for
concrete with different w/c ratios, and it was easy to
achieve a convergence. Therefore, the b, c2 and r were
fixed at their converged values and the flowchart
shown in Fig. 4; that is, a two-parameter nonlinear

Materials and Structures

Fig. 4 Flowchart for
calibrating the stochastic
damage model

Table 3 Model parameters calibrated from the present tests

w/c

g0

c1

c2

0.40

0.0043

1.2

0.081

0.01

0.98

0.45

0.0049

1.2

0.061

0.01

0.98

0.55

0.0116

1.2

0.030

0.01

0.98

0.60

0.0261

1.2

0.027

0.01

0.98

analysis procedure, was run once again. In general,

Eqs. (22) and (23) can be solved with sufficient
accuracy when n C 5. Table 3 presents a summary of
the micromechanical parameters calibrated from the
present tests.
As previously mentioned, b describes the form of
the density function of the Weibull distribution. For
concrete subjected to a similar deterioration environment, b hardly changes. b = 1.2 seems to be suitable
for normal concrete (with a w/c ratio of 0.40.6)
exposed to FTCs in water. The damage probability
was also found to increase with g0, which is the scale

parameter at the center of the specimen. A higher w/c

ratio of concrete led to a larger g0. The parameter c1,
which is the location parameter, represents a threshold
deterioration time beyond which the damage starts to
occur. This explains why concrete with a lower w/c
ratio corresponds to a larger value of c1. The parameter
c2 denotes the slope of the function g(x) and remained
constant within the tested range of the w/c ratio.
Finally, the parameter r had a great impact on the
variance of the damage. An increased r led to a
dramatic drop in the variance of the damage. A
constant value of 0.98 was found to be suitable for
r based on the analysis of the current test data.
Through the nonlinear regression analysis, the
relationship of two fluctuant parameters, g0 and c1,
for non-entrained concrete submitted to FTCs with the
w/c ratios can be expressed as follows:
g0 1:7  105 exp22w/c  6 0:004

26

c1 0:98 exp6:208w/c

27

Materials and Structures

Fig. 5 Predicted mean damage evolution for concrete with

different w/c ratios

With Eqs. (26) and (27) and two constant values,

b = 1.2 and c2 = 0.01, the predicted evolution of the
mean frost damage of concrete with different w/c
ratios can be obtained as shown in Fig. 5. It is noted

that, for a given w/c ratio, there exists a threshold

number of FTCs, NCR, beyond which the concrete
starts to deteriorate (refer to the red line in Fig. 5).
This is because the initial moisture content of the
concrete specimen is below the critical moisture
content at the beginning of the FTC tests [8].
Consequently, no damage is induced during the initial
cycles. With further water uptake during the FTCs, the
threshold moisture content is reached in the whole or
parts of the specimen, resulting in the commencement
of frost damage. The proposed damage model effectively captures such a mechanism. The value of NCR
depends on the water uptake during each cycle, in
addition to the initial moisture content in the concrete.
A higher NCR is needed for concrete with a lower w/c
ratio, which is characterized by a finer pore structure
and lower permeability.
The comparison between the predicted damage
evolutions and the experimental ones for the four types

Fig. 6 Evolution of the standard deviation of D: experimental data versus model prediction

Materials and Structures

Fig. 7 Analytically predicted variability of DN relations

of concrete mixtures tested are presented in Fig. 3,

which reveals that the model prediction agrees well
with the present experimental data (mean damage). Of
course, this is no surprise given that the model
parameters were calibrated from the test data. The
analytical curves for the standard deviation rD of the
damage with the number of FTSc are also presented in
Fig. 6, in comparison with their experimental counterparts. Figure 7 further illustrates the mean lD,
lD rD and lD 2rD curves for the four different
w/c ratios studied. It shows that 77 % of the data lie
between lD - rD and lD ? rD, whereas 99 % of the
data lie between lD - 2rD and lD ? 2rD.
3.4 Further validation of the model
To further validate the proposed stochastic damage
model, a database of 80 other concrete specimens
subjected to FTCs (performed by other researchers)
was assembled. In building up the test database, the

following criteria were consistently applied to screen

the data:
(1)

(2)

(3)

All of the specimens were subjected to rapid

freezethaw tests in water. The test procedures
were similar to those used in the testing
conducted in this study (Sect. 3.1)
All of the specimens shared the following dimensions: 100 mm 9 100 mm 9 400 mm, as per
the request of [11]
The concrete was non-air-entrained and
incorporated no supplementary additives such
as fly ash or slag because this study focuses on
conventional concrete

The assembled database is summarized in Table 4,

where the predicted mean damage (obtained by using
the proposed stochastic model including these parameters calibrated by our own tests), lDmodel, and the
ratio of the predicted mean damage to its experimental
counterpart, lDmodel/lDtest, are also presented. The

Materials and Structures

Table 4 Verification of the proposed stochastic damage model
Reference

[27]

[12]

[3]

w/c

0.5

0.5

0.45

0.60

[21]

0.48

Mix proportions (kg/m3)

Cement

Fine
aggregate

Coarse
aggregate

Water

383

663

1154

193

N/A

444

333

360

N/A

555

636

737

lDtest

lDmodel

lDmodel/lDtest

25

0.15

0.081

0.54

50

0.18

0.209

1.16

75

0.28

0.332

1.19

100

0.38

0.443

1.17

10

0.008

0.012

1.50

17

0.029

0.042

1.45

28

0.054

0.096

1.77

41

0.151

0.162

1.07

76

0.428

0.336

0.79

205

0.727

0.764

1.05

305
25

0.843
0.075

0.905
0.039

1.07
0.52

50

0.130

0.133

1.02

75

0.200

0.229

1.15

100

0.325

0.321

0.99

125

0.475

0.407

0.86

N/A

1200

1230

1106

N/A

200

200

172.8

0.20

0.070

0.35

25

0.31

0.452

1.46

35

0.41

0.598

1.46

50

0.10

0.170

1.70

100

0.27

0.382

1.41

150

0.78

0.556

0.71

[35]

0.5

360

769

1061

180

25

0.080

0.081

1.01

50

0.122

0.209

1.71

[34]

0.6

300

699

1191

180

10

0.15

0.171

1.14

[36]

0.4

360

700

1143

144

25
50

0.50
0.14

0.452
0.098

0.90
0.70

100

0.24

0.270

1.13

150

0.39

0.427

1.09

235

0.55

0.636

1.16

25

0.074

0.017

0.23

50

0.095

0.098

1.03

[19]

[33]

0.4

0.4

408

525

788

525

1043

1139

163.2

210

75

0.124

0.185

1.49

100

0.187

0.270

1.44

125

0.331

0.352

1.06

150

0.488

0.427

0.88

175

0.639

0.496

0.78

200

0.745

0.559

0.75

25

0.069

0.017

0.25

50

0.123

0.098

0.80

75

0.149

0.185

1.24

Materials and Structures

Table 4 continued
Reference

w/c

Mix proportions (kg/m3)

Cement

0.45

0.50

0.55

0.60

[5]

[6]

Reference

[28]

0.48

0.42

w/c

0.45

0.55

Fine
aggregate

456

660

390

1077

693

345

1131

714

308

1164

732

406

1194

630

N/A

Coarse
aggregate

1169

N/A

N/A

lDtest

lDmodel

lDmodel/lDtest

100

0.179

0.270

1.51

125

0.246

0.352

1.43

150

0.303

0.427

1.41

175

0.345

0.496

1.44

190

0.398

0.534

1.34

Water

200

0.458

0.559

1.22

25

0.072

0.039

0.54

40

0.140

0.094

0.67

50

0.192

0.133

0.69

60

0.315

0.171

0.54

75
25

0.439
0.086

0.229
0.081

0.52
0.94

50

0.200

0.209

1.05

75

0.253

0.332

1.31

100

0.329

0.443

1.35

115

0.404

0.503

1.25

205

195

125

0.467

0.540

1.16

15

0.121

0.095

0.79

25

0.174

0.185

1.06

40

0.326

0.315

0.97

50

0.430

0.396

0.92

10

0.072

0.171

2.38

15

0.224

0.271

1.21

25

0.363

0.452

1.25

30

0.479

0.530

1.11

40
25

0.691
0.075

0.659
0.060

0.95
0.80

50

0.325

0.170

0.52

75

0.430

0.280

0.65

25

0.12

0.025

0.21

50

0.17

0.108

0.64

75

0.26

0.198

0.76

100

0.36

0.284

0.79

125

0.47

0.366

0.78

190

185

195

N/A

Mix proportions (kg/m )

Cement

Fine aggregate

Coarse aggregate

Water

427

499

1284

192

360

611

1241

198

lDtest

lDmodel

lDmodel/lDtest

25

0.077

0.039

0.51

50

0.216

0.133

0.62

75

0.380

0.229

0.60

25

0.259

0.185

0.71

50

0.532

0.396

0.74

Materials and Structures

Fig. 8 lDmodel versus lDtes

average value of lDmodel/lDtest is 1.01, reflecting a

good accuracy for the proposed model. The coefficient
of variation (i.e., 0.38) is relatively large, reflecting the
highly stochastic nature of the frost damage to the
concrete. Fig. 8 illustrates the comparison between the
model predictions and the test results. The agreement
seems to be acceptable at all levels of damage.

4 Discussion of the proposed model

The limitations of the proposed model should be noted
because the model parameters calibrated in this study
are only applicable for concrete that does not contain
air-entraining agents or other particular additives, such
as fly ash. In engineering practice, however, the use of
air-entraining agents and other pozzolanic materials
has become common practice. Additional tests and
analyses on a more extensive database are deemed
necessary, although the proposed stochastic damage
model is a generic one and can be extended for use
with other types of concrete.
Another issue to note is that the number of FTCs in
the specified accelerated laboratory exposure condition is used to represent the actual time scale when the
model parameters were calibrated in the proposed
model. It is obvious that a quantitative correlation
between the accelerated laboratory exposure and the
field exposure conditions is needed to facilitate
practical use of the proposed model. To find out how
many FTCs in the field represent each accelerated FTC

in the specified laboratory condition may prove a

challenging task and lies squarely outside the scope of
this study. Assuming that the model parameters for
different types of concrete are obtained and the issue
of environmental similarities between the laboratory
and field exposures is solved, the proposed stochastic
damage model, which is semi-empirical, could be used
in the service life prediction of concrete structures
subjected to freezethaw action.
The damage variable D is defined as the ratio of the
failed area to the total area [as shown in Eq. (3)].
Although this definition is widely accepted in the
continuum damage mechanics [16], it could not
capture all the physical and chemical processes
involved in the FTCs. Up to now, the frost deterioration mechanism is still debatable [8, 18, 25, 26] and
needs to be further studied for the future development
of this stochastic damage model.
In addition, the lifetimes of the microelements are
assumed to be independent random variables following the three-parameter Weibull distribution [Eq. (1)],
which is an important basis for the whole deduction of
this stochastic model. The study of the true distribution of lifetime is required to develop a more general
and accurate model.

5 Conclusions
In this study, a stochastic damage model for concrete
subjected to freezethaw action has been developed. It

Materials and Structures

offers a theoretical basis for evaluating the frost

damage to concrete with due consideration of the
features of frost damage along with its stochastic
nature. In the proposed model, the structural element
of concrete is assumed to be composed of infinite
microelements with random lifetimes, which follows
the three-parameter Weibull distribution. The expressions for the mean and variance of the damage of
concrete are derived and an experiment program is
carried out to calibrate the model parameters. The
validity of the formed stochastic model is also
demonstrated by predicting 80 other existing tests.
Although the model parameters calibrated from this
study are only suitable for normal concrete with no airentraining agents or any other pozzolanic additives,
the proposed stochastic model is general and could be
extended to other types of concrete through a similar
procedure, which is a combined analytical-experimental adaption. It is expected that the proposed
model can be deployed in the more reasonable
modeling of concrete frost damage with due consideration of concretes stochastic nature.
Acknowledgments This research was financially supported
by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.
51108413), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central
Universities (No. 2012QNA4016) and the Western Construction
Project of Ministry of Transportation (No. 20113288061110).
The authors are grateful to the staff and technicians in the lab for
their kind suggestions and assistance during the execution of this
research. In addition, the authors wish to thank The Hong Kong
Polytechnic University for this collaborative research
opportunity.

Appendix: derivations of the equations in Sect. 2.2

The derivation of Eq. (6) is as follows:
1
lD t
A0

Z t ZZ
0

ZZ
1

A0
ZZ
1

A0
ZZ
1

A0
ZZ
1

A0

H t  sfT s; x; ydsds
X

H t  s
fT s; x; ydsds
0
X
Z t
fT s; x; ydsds
X 0

FT t; x; yds
X

FT t; x; ydxdy
X

The derivation of Eq. (11) is as follows:

Z
Z
8 a
2 a
xFT t; xdx 2
xFT t; xdx
A0 0
a
  0
Z a 
2
2
x 1  exp  g0 c2 xt  c1 
a 0
b
c1

 Ht 
dx
g 0 c2 x
( 
Z a
Z a
2
b
xdx 
x exp  g0 c2 xt  c1   gdx
2
a
0
0
b ) !
c1

Ht 
dx
g0 c2 x
 
Z a
2
1 2
x exp  g0 c2 xt  c1 
a 0
c1

Ht 
g0 c2 x

lD t

11
The derivation of Eq. (16) is as follows:


E D2 t
ZZ
1
2
A0
ZZ
1
2
A0

Z t Z

ZZ
X

ZZ


fT s1 ; s2 ; s1 ; s2 ds1 ds2 ds1 ds2

FT t; t; s1 ; s2 ds1 ds2
X

16

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