Damage Analysis And Non-linear Behavior Of A Reinforced Concrete Arch Structure

The damaging process and failure of a reinforced concrete structure under a quasi-static loading condition is investigated based on the continuum damage theory. The concrete is a quasi-brittle material that can be treated as an elastic damage problem. A damage constitutive model with 4 independent parameters is derived from the three-order form of the general theory for the elastic damage problem which is established on the second law of thermodynamics. A tension-compression parameterγis introduced into the damage constitutive model such that it can describe the different damage behaviors of concrete under tension and compression conditions. The damaging process and failure of an arch rib which was removed from an old bridge is simulated numerically by using damage mechanics– additional load– finite element method.The damage identification and location of the structure are analyzed quantitively based on the numerical results. The linear stress-strain relation is changed due to the concrete damage effect. The numerical results show the pronounced nonlinearity at the large loading levels. The theoretical predictions agree well with the experimental results, better than the results by linear-elastic finite element method. It indicates that the elastic damage theory is valid to describe the damage and fracture behaviors of concretes. The proposed damage model can be applied to describe the damage behaviors of the reinforced concrete arch structures.