Investigation of Behavior of RC Beams Subjected to Impact Loading Considering Combination of Mass and Impact Velocity

Recently, the demand of the structural safety subjected to impact loading has been increased. For this reason, various studies for predicting the behavior of structures under impact loading have been actively performed. Some researchers have suggested performance based design to predict the behaviors of structures. They conducted drop weight impact test and suggested empirical equations to estimate the maximum or residual deflection of reinforcement concrete (RC) beams under impact loading based on the static flexural capacity and the input impact energy. In these equations, input impact energy is important factor and composed of mass and impact velocity of drop weight. Thus, there are various combinations of mass and impact velocity of drop weight having the same impact energy energy, however, the equation did not include the effect of the combinations. In this study, the behavior of RC beams was investigated considering the combination of mass and impact velocity through the FE analysis using LS-DYNA. The flexural failure type RC beams, which were performed by other researchers, and several combinations of mass and impact velocity of drop weight were used as variables in this analysis. Consequently, it is confirmed that behaviors of RC beams are related to the combination. These results imply that the previous empirical equations and the design of concrete structures subjected to impact loading should consider the combination of mass and impact velocity.