3D fracture simulation of reinforced concrete based on fracture mechanics for concrete and its performance assessment

Abstract

This paper presents fracture simulations of reinforced concrete involving crack propagation in concrete and plastic deformation in reinforcements. The simulation is based on the nonlinear finite element framework in which the von-Mises plasticity model and the modified von-Mises damage model are applied to reinforcement and concrete respectively. The method is also capable of simulating mesoscopic fracture behavior of reinforced concrete together with internally propagating cracks. We first show the material modeling of reinforcing bar and concrete based on the von-Mises and the modified von-Mises criterion. Several numerical experiments for material behavior are presented to verify the performance of the proposed model. The mesh sensitivity and objectivity of the proposed model is also verified in 4-point bend test of RC beam without shear reinforcements. Finally, the comparisons between numerical and experimental results show that the proposed method is able to simulate the failure behavior of RC beams with shear reinforcements and the simulation results are conformable with the experimental ones.