Numerical modelling of fracture in fiber-reinforced composite structures. Application to reinforced concrete

J. OLIVER, A.E. HUESPE, M.D.G. PULIDO, D.L.LINERO

LMT Cachan, Paris, France

Workshop; A: Challenges in Computational Mechanics. LMT; 2006

Computer modelling of fracture in concrete has got increasing achievements in the last years. The appearance of new computational technologies has overcome some of the drawbacks of the former smeared approaches, increased robustness and decreased the computational costs when they are applied to plain concrete. On the other hand, reinforced concrete can be considered as a fiber-reinforced composite material where rebars are longfibres compounds. Therefore, modelling technologies that have been classically applied to composite materials, like mixing theories, can also be applied to reinforced concrete. This work presents a new setting for modelling fracture of fiber-reinforced composite materials, focusing reinforced concrete as a specific case, combining the aforementioned approaches: a) a matrix material (concrete) and an oriented fiber material (rebars in different directions) are considered in every material point as basic compounds of the composite material (reinforced concrete) an b) the continuum strong discontinuity approach to material failure (CSDA) [1-3] and finite elements with embedded discontinuities (EFEM) [4] techniques are used to model material failure (fracture) of the composite material. In this way, robust and reliable phenomenological modelling of fracture of reinforced concrete can be done. Dissipative phenomena like, bond-slip effects in the rebars, dowel action etc., are accounted for at the compound (fiber) level in a simple manner. Applications to practical cases show the feasibility of the proposed approach.