Numerical simulation of reinforced concrete beams with different shear reinforcements under dynamic impact loads

The behavior of concrete/reinforced concrete structures is strongly influenced by the loading rate. Reinforced concrete structural members subjected to impact loads behave quite differently as compared to the same subjected to quasi-static loading. This difference is attributed to the strain-rate influence on strength, stiffness, and ductility as well as to the activation of inertia forces. These influences are clearly demonstrated in experiments. Moreover, for concrete structures, which exhibit damage and fracture phenomena, the failure mode and cracking pattern depend significantly on loading rate. In general, there is a tendency that with the increase of loading rate the failure mode changes from mode-I to mixed mode. Furthermore, theoretical and experimental investigations indicate that after the crack reaches critical speed of propagation there is crack branching. The present paper focuses on 3D finite-element study of reinforced concrete beams with different amount of shear reinforcement under impact. The experiments reported in literature are numerically simulated using the rate sensitive microplane model as constitutive law for concrete, while the strain-rate influence is captured by the activation energy theory. Inertia forces are implicitly accounted for through dynamic finite element analysis. However, the impact was modeled not by explicit modeling of two bodies but by incrementing the load point displacement till the maximum value and at the rate reported from the test. The results of the numerical study show that the numerical analysis using the procedure followed in this work can very well simulate the impact behavior of reinforced concrete beams. The static and dynamic reactions, crack patterns and failure modes as predicted in analysis are in close agreement with their experimentally observed counterparts. It was concluded that under impact loads, of the order as simulated in this work (blunt impact with velocity of around 1 m/s), the shear reinforcement does not get activated and therefore the dynamic reactions, unlike static reactions, are almost independent of the amount of shear reinforcement in the beams. However, the presence of shear reinforcement significantly affects the crack pattern and the cracks are well distributed in the presence of shear reinforcement, thus avoiding the formation of shear plugs.