A fractional-order model for aging materials: An application to concrete

In this paper, the hereditariness of aging materials is modeled within the framework of fractional calculus of variable order. A relevant application is made for the long-term behavior of concrete, for which the creep function is evaluated with the aid of Model B3. The corresponding relaxation function is derived through the Volterra iterated kernels and a comparison with the numerically-obtained relaxation function of Model B3 is also reported. The proposed fractional hereditary aging model (FHAM) for concretes leads to a relaxation function that fully agrees with the well-established Model B3. Furthermore, the FHAM takes full advantage of the formalism of fractional-order calculus to yield semi-analytic expressions in terms of material parameters.