Abstract
Reinforced concrete structures may need repair in order to ensure the designed durability. Such necessity vary in cause and effect, but the structural diagnosis serves as the basis for adopting intervention measures. The assessment of the structural condition usually is made in loco, but sometimes numerical analyses are required as a low cost and effective preliminary diagnosis. In general, numerical analyses use hundreds or thousands of finite elements and nonlinear theories that are not often used in engineering practice. As an alternative, lumped damage mechanics (LDM) uses key concepts of classic fracture and damage mechanics in plastic hinges throughout well-known quantities such as ultimate moment and cracking moment. Such theory describes the concrete cracking by a damage variable, which can be used as a diagnosis criterion. Therefore, this paper presents LDM as a diagnosis tool to analyse actual structures. The case studies presented in this paper are a former bridge arch tested in China and a balcony that collapsed in Brazil. The results show that LDM numerical response of those structures are quite close to laboratory observations (former bridge arch) and in loco measurements (balcony).
Highlights
Reinforced concrete (RC) structures require periodical inspection, maintenance and repairs to ensure the designed durability
This paper presents lumped damage mechanics (LDM) as a diagnosis tool to evaluate damage levels in reinforced concrete (RC) structures
From all previous studies, where Lumped Damage Mechanics (LDM) was used in nonlinear analyses, this paper showed that the LDM formulation can be applied in practical engineering problems
Summary
Reinforced concrete (RC) structures require periodical inspection, maintenance and repairs to ensure the designed durability. The assessment of structural damage may occur in loco using non-destructive methods such as visual inspection [1], acoustic emission [2] and ground penetrating radar [3], or destructive methods as explosions [4]. This analysis can take place in laboratory, using samples of an original structure [5] or with the combination of experimental and numerical analysis, aiming to reproduce the experimental behaviour, as the stress/strain and fatigue [6] or the damage and dynamic properties [7]. An efficient alternative to such procedures in order to assess damage in reinforced concrete structures is the Lumped Damage Mechanics (LDM). The damage variable is used as a diagnosis tool, presenting satisfactory results for both analysed structures
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