ABSTRACT
The basis of the study presented here is the characterization of the experimental behaviour of concrete. Modelling cannot be considered complete, however, without ‘feed-back’ from its success in numerical prediction of the response of civil engineering structures. In the mechanics of solids, investigation is usually triggered by experience with full-scale structures and the phenomena are then modelled and reproduced, at small scale, by laboratory experiments. At this point the engineer can tune his mathematical model and check its response. Thus models do not survive without having been implemented in the analysis of such structures and thereafter their predictions tested against the results of the experimental evidence initially obtained at full scale. This stage in research is equally important and just as demanding as making experimental observations.
