Seismic damage analysis of RC structures using fiber beam-column elements

This paper examines the development of a simple and effective concrete damage model for earthquake engineering applications. This constitutive model consists of a modified uniaxial version of the Faria–Oliver model and takes into account most of the basic traits of concrete under monotonic static and dynamic loading, like the different response under compression and tension, the stiffness reduction with the increase of external loading and the appearance of softening behavior. A fiber beam-column element is investigated, which adopts the proposed concrete damage model and the Menegotto–Pinto approach for steel rebars. Then, these constitutive models are implemented into the ABAQUS general purpose finite element program to provide simple and effective computational tools for the seismic inelastic analysis of general 3-D reinforced concrete (RC) framed structures. The proposed method is demonstrated and verified by characteristic numerical examples where it is shown that the proposed damage model can describe successfully the complicated behavior of reinforced concrete under extreme seismic loads.

► Development of a new concrete damage model for earthquake engineering applications.
► Implementation of this damage model into the ABAQUS finite element program.
► Implementation of Menegotto–Pinto model for steel rebars into the ABAQUS program.
► Seismic inelastic analysis of 3-D RC structures using the aforementioned tools.