Simulations of cohesive fracture behavior of reinforced concrete by a fracture-mechanics-based damage model

Abstract We present a method of simulating the cohesive fracture behavior of reinforced concrete. The proposed method achieved a satisfactory correspondence with the experimental results. An outstanding feature of the proposed method is its ability to reproduce the three-dimensional (3D) geometry and distribution of arbitrary cracks and the plastic deformation of reinforcing-bars by using the finite element method (FEM) and a damage model based on the concrete’s fracture mechanics, which were considered in the modeling of cohesive-crack behavior in concrete. Our study began with the formulation of a nonlinear computational model for each constituent in the reinforced concrete. Four-point bending tests for reinforced concrete (RC) beams with different shear reinforcements were used to verify and validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The analysis results of an RC beam without shear reinforcements indicate that the crack propagation behavior simulated with the proposed method had little dependency on the mesh size. Finally, a comparison between the numerical and experimental results revealed that the proposed method enables the simulation of RC beam failure patterns with satisfactory accuracy and without changing the material parameters.