Apex control within an elasto-plastic constitutive model for confined concretes

Abstract This work focuses on the numerical modelling of confined concretes when subjected to multiaxial loading accounting for a nonlinear material response. Particularly, an improved return mapping procedure is presented to cope with the issue of singularities (corners) in the yield surface, able to catch locally the optimal return point on the active yield surface. The algorithm is applied to the Menetry and Willam’s yield surface, with a plastic potential as suggested by Grassl and the softening law proposed by Cervenka suitable for concrete materials. The model capabilities to reproduce the confined behaviour of concrete, as well as its post-peak behaviour, and to predict perfect plasticity or softening are here discussed. The proposed approach can be applied to any elastoplastic material with singular yield surface along the hydrostatic axis.