Concrete damage analysis based on higher-order beam theories using fracture energy regularization.

Area of Science:

• Civil Engineering
• Computational Mechanics
• Materials Science

Background:

• Concrete structures require accurate numerical damage analysis for performance prediction.
• Higher-order beam theories offer improved accuracy over classical methods.
• Carrera Unified Formulation (CUF) provides a versatile framework for structural analysis.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a numerical damage analysis of concrete structures using higher-order beam theories based on CUF.
• To model concrete's constitutive behavior using continuum damage mechanics and a modified Mazars model.
• To propose a method for estimating characteristic length in higher-order beam theories to avoid mesh dependency.

Main Methods:

• Utilized Carrera Unified Formulation (CUF) for higher-order beam theories.
• Employed continuum damage mechanics with a modified Mazars concrete damage model.
• Incorporated classical fracture energy methodology for regularization of softening behaviors.
• Estimated characteristic length to ensure mesh-independent results.
• Validated the model against three benchmark quasi-static experimental tests.

Main Results:

• The proposed CUF model accurately simulates concrete damage.
• The model demonstrates 3D accuracy with significantly lower computational costs compared to traditional methods.
• The developed method effectively reduces mesh dependency in numerical simulations.
• Numerical results show good agreement with experimental data.

Conclusions:

• The CUF-based continuum damage mechanics model is efficient for analyzing concrete structures.
• The proposed approach achieves high accuracy while minimizing computational resources.
• The method successfully addresses mesh dependency issues in higher-order beam analyses.
• This work provides a reliable tool for the numerical damage analysis of concrete structures.