Finite element analysis of shear failure of reinforced and prestressed concrete beams

Abstract

Three application examples are presented of the finite element method to the analysis of shear critical reinforced and prestressed concrete beams, with little or no transverse reinforcement. The constitutive model for cracked concrete is described. This is based on an orthotropic smeared-crack model, which has been implemented in a membrane finite element available in the computer program IDEEA. The proposed model is verified with several experimental tests available in the literature. In the first case, we analyze the response of a 19 m long deep beam that failed in the right span with no transverse reinforcement in diagonal-tension failure. The second example concerns an overpass structure that collapsed in 2006 due to shear failure of the cantilever slab in one of the abutments. In the last example we analyze a number of prestressed concrete beams, where also results regarding the maximum crack width in the beam web region at different levels of applied load are presented.