Numerical Techniques for Predicting Brittle Failure of Reinforced Concrete Planar Structures

Abstract

Reinforced concrete members sometimes experience brittle failures, characterized by a sudden decrease in load capacity. Such brittle failures include shear failure and flexural crushing failure without yielding of flexural reinforcement. Usually, it is very difficult to obtain analytical predictions of the brittle failures and to verify the failure mechanism. The objective of this paper is to investigate nonlinear numerical methods for predicting complete member behavior at target displacements including brittle failure, and to investigate the propagation of cracking and crushing related to the brittle failure. In particular, the validity of an arc-length method and a displacement-control method will be investigated, using existing monotonic and cyclic cracked concrete models proposed by the writers.