Numerical Evaluation of Reinforced Concrete Beams Loaded in Bending

Abstract

In this paper, the behaviour of reinforced concrete beams is estimated with the Finite Element Method and improvements to the method are proposed. Because the reinforced concrete elements work in conjunction with the material cracking behaviour, the behaviour is very complex and depends on the shape of the reinforcement, mechanical characteristics of the materials and the intensity of loads.
In general, the Finite Element Method cannot emulate this complex process because the connection between elements at the node is fixed and slip behaviour of reinforcement is not allowed. For this reason, the results obtained with the Finite Element Method do not correctly describe the phenomenon. To address this, the authors propose an improvement on the Finite Element Method to eliminate the deficiency and describe the process with more accuracy.