Plasticity Based Nonlinear Finite Element Analysis of Steel Fiber Reinforced Concrete Beams

Abstract

In this study, a blind simulation was carried out to predict the response of full-scale steel fiber-reinforced concrete beams (SFRC) subjected to four-point bending. For this purpose, an experimental study was selected from the literature. Bending tests of two beam specimens with prismatic geometry of 300x500x4400 and 150x250x2000 mm were simulated using the non-linear finite element (NLFE) code ABAQUS/Explicit [1]. In the full-scale numerical models, concrete, and steel rebars were discretized in space by eight-node reduced integration linear brick elements (C3D8R) and linear beam elements (B31), respectively. Additionally, concrete damage plasticity (CDP) constitutive model was adopted for concrete and the stress-strain relationship of steel reinforcements was established based on the piecewise functions given in Turkish Building Earthquake Code (TBEC) 2018 [2]. The embedded element technique was used to establish a perfect bond between concrete brick elements and steel reinforcement beam elements. Therefore, concrete elements were selected to be host elements while steel reinforcement was embedded in the host material. Support conditions and loading plates were explicitly modeled using eight-node brick element (C3D8R) as rectangular prisms. The interaction between the plates and beam specimen was provided by tie constraint. Results from the numerical analyses included load-displacement curve and crack pattern variables which are considered to verify the experimental results.