Abstract
This paper presents the comparison between numerical and experimental results of RC beams with different shear reinforcements failing in flexural or shear mode to demonstrate the validity of 3D fracture simulation with a damage model. The modified von-Mises damage model based on fracture mechanics for concrete is applied to modeling of crack propagation in concrete whereas the von-Mises plasticity model is applied to reinforcements. To simulate meso-scale fracture behavior of RC beam, the material behaviors of steel and concrete are separately discretized with the finite element mesh in which the detailed geometry of reinforcement is reflected. We first show the formulation of the constitutive models for steel and concrete. Particularly the modeling of crack formation due to the degradation of stiffness using the damage model is accounted for. Then, numerical and experimental results are presented for 4-point bend tests of RC beams with different shear reinforcements. The comparisons show that the proposed method is capable of simulating the fracture behavior of RC beams with different failure modes without changing material parameters, and additionally the simulated results are comparable with the experimental ones.
