An effective numerical simulation methodology to predict the impact response of pre-stressed concrete members

• A failure analysis of pre-stressed concrete members is proposed.
• Modeling pre-stressing force, concrete constitutive relationship, strain rates, and element erosion criteria for concrete are included.
• The stress initialization of concrete to a steady-state condition is used.
• Predicting the response of axially loaded columns for an accidentally lateral impact loads as well.

This study provides an effective analysis procedure to perform a failure analysis of pre-stressed concrete members subjected to lateral impact loads using the finite element analysis (FEA) program, LS-DYNA. The proposed numerical method includes modeling techniques which define pre-stressing force, concrete constitutive relationship, strain rates, and element erosion criteria. In the FEA model presented in this study, the prestress force is applied by temperature-induced shrinkage in prestressing stands. The stress initialization of concrete to a steady-state condition is completed by using the ‘DYNAMIC_RELAXATION’ option, prior to performing a transient impact analysis. Available experimental data from a beam impact test are used for validation of the proposed methodology. Furthermore, the sensitivity of modeling parameters is examined. It is also shown that the proposed method can be used to predict the response of axially loaded columns for an accidentally applied lateral impact loads, resulting from a car or vessel crash.