Numerical study of fatigue behaviour of steel reinforced concrete (SRC) beams

There is an increased use of steel reinforced concrete (SRC) beams in civil engineering construction where fatigue loading could be critical. Most of the research on SRC beams so far was focused on static or earthquake loading, with very limited work on SRC beams under fatigue loading. This paper presents a numerical study on SRC beams subjected to fatigue loading, which follows a recent experimental study carried out by the authors. ABAQUS software was utilized to perform numerical simulation which considers the crack propagation in the H-steel using fracture mechanics theory and the damage evolution of the reinforcement and concrete. The predicted fatigue life of SRC beams was in good agreement with experimental data. The FE analysis revealed the influence of stress ranges, reinforcement ratios, sizes of H-steel beam and stud shear connectors on fatigue characteristics of SRC beams, such as stress intensity factors, crack propagation, damage in reinforcement bars and residual strength of concrete.