Experimental and numerical non-lineal analysis of ferrocement thin walls under lateral load

D. BEDOYA; J. A. PAREDES; J. HURTADO; S. OLLER; A. BARBAT

Conferencia; 17th International Conference on Composite Structures (ICCS17); 2013

An experimental and numerical research for determining stiffness, shear strength,ductility and failure mechanics of ferrocement thin walls was carried out. Ferrocementthin walls are the main components of the seismic system of the ferrocement dwellinghouses. The experimental test was carried out on 12 precast ferrocement thin wallswhich were tested on real scale with dimensions of 1.00 x 2.00 x 0.02 m. These wallswere loaded with lateral force in incremental steps beyond the linear range. Thenumerical analysis was carried out using the series parallel mixing theory that allowsmodeling ferrocement as a composite. The concrete was modeled with a constitutivedamage model and the steel was modeled with an elasto-plastic constitutive law. Theexperimental and numerical results were compared showing a good fit, which allowscalibrating main parameter of the numerical model, the fracture energy and tensilestrength of concrete. This parameter will be used in the future for numerical analysis ofseveral designs of new ferrocement dwelling houses. The experimental results show thatthe cracks appear for a lateral force in the top of the wall of 4 kN. They were located onmiddle bottom of the wall, in the tension zone. The ultimate lateral force was of 14 kNwithout brittle failure. Numerically, the cracks were identified by strain localization.