FINITE ELEMENT

SIMULATION OF
DAMAGE IN RC
BEAMS
M. U. Hanif, Z. Ibrahim, K. Ghaedi, A. Javanmardi and S.K.
Rehman
University of Malaya, Malaysia
INTRODUCTION
 Concrete is a very unique material. It exhibits strength in compression and
is weak in tension. Reinforced concrete is a composite in which concrete
tackles the compression and the reinforcement cater for the tension.
 Modeling of reinforced concrete is a complex process. The detailed
modeling may lead to accuracy but may make it computation intensive and
vice versa. However, incorporating an accurate model in damage detection
is the foundation of the SHM applications. Most of the damage detecting
scenarios in the concrete assume the linear i.e. the structure is assumed to
behave linearly after the damage. In contrast to this, the structures exhibit
nonlinear behavior due to presence of micro cracks.
 A tensile constitutive relation was used to model cracked concrete. The
model is capable of representing the realistic crack behavior of concrete
and was used recently for damage modeling RC beams.
CONSTITUTIVE RELATIONS
 The compressive model used in this study translates stress-strain behavior
of concrete in agreement with most of the models. The focus of this study
will shift towards tensile concrete modeling, so a convenient compressive
model is chosen for the ease of this study. Commercial finite element
software ABAQUS was used for modeling the RC beam. The model used for
compressive strength of concrete is the concrete damage plasticity model
(CDPM). The compressive constitutive relations were incorporated in CDPM
as:
 𝜀 1
 𝑓𝑐 𝛽
( 𝜀 𝑐)
′  𝛽 =
𝑓 ′𝑐
′
= 𝛽 1− ′
𝑓 𝑐
𝛽 −1+
( 𝜀𝜀𝑐 ) ′
𝜀 𝑐 ∗ 𝜀 𝑖𝑡

′
 𝐸𝑖𝑡 = 24.92 +0.92 ∗ 𝑓 𝑐
′ ′
𝜀  𝑐=( 0.71 𝑓 𝑐 +168 ) ∗10 −5
( ′
𝑓 𝑐 ) ′
𝜀 𝑐

Where,
fc= compressive strength of concrete
f’c= concrete cylinder compressive strength @ 28days
ε=the concrete strain
ε’c=strain at peak stress
FEM SIMULATION
 Some brief details of the material properties are given in Table 1 and 2.
 The bond between concrete and reinforcing steel was kept a perfect bond
i.e. the deformations in steel and concrete were the same at interface. It
was achieved by using constraint as embedded region to embed steel in
the concrete part. The support conditions were kept simply supported
(vertical and horizontal restraint on nodes on left support and vertical
restraint on the right support). There was no accumulation of stresses at
the supports and the fundamental modal frequency was in agreement with
the reference model.
Flow chart for analyzing the concrete model
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Static Response

Mises stresses in reinforcement at 90% damage level

Load deflection behavior up to 60% load
Dynamic Response
 The response of the beam was recorded against a harmonic excitation of
30Hz. The modal frequencies for first five bending modes were also
recorded with the increase of damage load. The natural frequencies
reduced with the increase of damage. The frequencies were normalize and
their behavior is shown below.
Cracking Pattern
The cracks started forming at around 30% of the maximum load. The current
model somewhat follows the similar constitutive model (fictitious crack
model) which was experimentally proven in another experiment. The
advantage of this model of beam is that it is capable of producing realistic
crack formation. The flexural cracks in the shear span start getting inclined
after 40% of the failure load.
CONCLUSIONS
 The commonly incorporated natural frequency determination procedure was
incorporated in reproducing the nonlinear behavior through the formation of
super-harmonics in cracked RC beam. The incremental damage was applied in
identifying natural frequencies. Based on the study, the following conclusions
can be drawn:
 The currently proposed simulation technique is an effort in assisting practicing
engineers and consultants to use at-hand software packages to conveniently model the
damage in existing structures
 Concrete damaged plasticity model is capable of predicting formation of cracks in
concrete beams against any kinds of loads.
 Currently the built-in concrete damaged plasticity model is not sensitive to damage
using linear vibration techniques.
 With all being said, the concrete damaged plasticity is a versatile tool for
modeling RC structures and careful choice of solution procedures for dynamic
analysis can lead to accurate modeling of concrete using a few laboratory test
results of the materials