Master Project – Spring 2015
Modeling reinforced concrete behavior is a challenge. Reinforced concrete is a composite, heterogeneous, anisotropic and non-linear material. Simplified models, that an engineer can use, exist to allow efficient design of a structure. However, many models used by engineers fail to predict the response of a concrete structure in terms of displacements with sufficient accuracy. This requires a non-linear analysis of the structure, which becomes tedious if done by hand. Furthermore, structures are becoming more complex, increasing the need for numerical simulations. With reinforced concrete, elastic models are not enough to represent the behavior of the material, and this can lead to errors in the predicted response of the structure.
To improve the quality of numerical models for finite elements, several methods have been developed to account for the following aspects of reinforced concrete :
- Reinforcement layout (position and quantity)
- Reinforcement behavior (plasticity, but also pre-/post-tensioning effects)
- Concrete behavior (plasticity, damage and delayed effects)
This project focuses mainly on the first point. There are several methods of accounting for the reinforcement in a reinforced concrete finite elements model. The following are the three main models :
- Smeared model
- Discrete model
- Embedded model
The embedded model is the main model studied in this project : how it is formulated, how it can be implemented in a finite elements code, how it converges with respect to the mesh size, and its advantages and limits compared to the discrete model.
Elements affected by a reinfocement going through them, a particularity of the embedded model
Damaged concrete in a tension simulation (cross-section)
- Student:
- Lucas Frérot, [email protected]
- Advisors:
- Marco Vocialta (LSMS), [email protected]
- Mauro Corrado (LSMS), [email protected]
- Thomas Menouillard (Stucky S.A.), [email protected]
- Jean-François Molinari (LSMS), [email protected]