A strain-hardening microplane damage model for thin-walled textile-reinforced concrete shells, calibration procedure, and experimental validation

Thin-walled shell structures made of textile-reinforced concrete (TRC) exhibit a high load-bearing capacity and considerable ductility. However, the material behavior exhibits several interacting mechanisms of material disintegration that result in a complex, highly nonlinear structural response. In this paper, an anisotropic material model for TRC will be discussed that is able to capture those effects. The calibration of the material model is performed based on an inverse analysis using the strain-hardening response measured in a uniaxial tensile test. Finally, we validate the material model through a finite-element simulation of three-point bending tests as well as the complex biaxial load-bearing behavior as observed in slab tests with central loading. In this context, further issues such as the influence of large deflections and geometrical nonlinearity will be investigated. The calibrated model provides a valuable tool for an in-depth analysis of the structural behavior of thin-walled TRC shell structures. This is especially important for a realistic prediction of the deflections in the cracked state as well as load-bearing reserves resulting from stress redistributions.