Cracking in deep beams owing to shear loading. Part 2: Non-linear analysis

Abstract

In this paper, analyses based on laboratory tests of ten large deep beams with I-shaped cross-sections loaded to failure are presented. All beams had the same geometry with a shear span-to-depth ratio of 1·25, but differed in the amount of the vertical and horizontal web reinforcement. All beam tests resulted in shear failure, either diagonal tensile failure or shear compressive failure, depending on the amount of reinforcement. The diagonal tensile failure is generally considered to be the most difficult failure to treat numerically. In this study different material models incorporated in commercial numerical analysis tools are studied. Material models based on fracture mechanics with either rotated or fixed crack directions as well as a plasticity-based model are used in the analyses. The analyses show that the plasticity-based model in Abaqus gives good agreement with the experiments regarding crack pattern, load–displacement response and estimated crack widths. The models based on fracture mechanics in Atena and Response tend to give too stiff behaviour in the load–displacement response, but generally give a good estimation of the load capacity. The analyses performed with Atena gave good estimations of the crack pattern, and the models with a fixed crack direction also gave good estimates of the crack width.