1) Design of fibre reinforced concrete structural elements; 2) constitutive model for reinforced concrete members; 3) ductility of composite plate girders with slender webs

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The proposed research program includes three research projects which are a direct continuation of past and ongoing projects.  All research projects combine laboratory testing and analytical approaches. 1) Design of steel fibre reinforced concrete (SFRC) structural elements. The main objective of the project is to develop a design methodology and the associated material testing for the structural use of steel fibre reinforced concrete. This project is a part of an international research effort to which the applicant has been contributing actively. It addresses specifically the design of reinforced and prestressed concrete girders in flexure and shear at serviceability, fatigue and ultimate limit states. It also includes the seismic retrofitting of deficient rectangular bridge piers using SFRC jackets. 2) Constitutive model development for reinforced concrete structures. The objective of the project is to provide research and engineering communities with a sophisticated and general 3D constitutive model for predicting the behaviour in service, the ultimate capacity and the failure mechanisms of concrete members. This model has been used in research as a complement to experimental investigations, and as a predictive tool for structures with complex geometry. The activities focus on introducing SFRC properties in tension and compression, and on providing the model with the ability of simulating bond and lap splice failure modes under reversal cyclic loading conditions as a function of the confinement level. 3) Ductility of composite (steel/concrete) plate girders with slender webs. This project aims at developing guidelines for the Canadian Highway Bridge Design Code that ensure a sufficient level of ductility in plate and box girder bridges. The project addresses the problem of lack of ductility for girders with slender webs observed experimentally in full scale tests. The project will establish geometrical limits to the design approach adopted by the latest Bridge Code edition that would avoid critical situations in the design of new bridges, or allow estimating the available ductility in the case of existing bridge evaluation.