• Computers and Concrete
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.347-364
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• 2010

Since its invention in the $19^{th}$ century, Reinforced Concrete (RC) has been widely used in the construction of a lot of different structures, as buildings, bridges, nuclear central plants, or even ships. The details of the mechanical response for this kind of structures depends directly upon the material behavior of each component: concrete and steel, as well as their interaction through the bond-slip, which makes a rigorous engineering analysis of RC structures quite complicated. Consequently, the practical calculation of RC structures is done by adopting a lot of simplifications and hypotheses validated in the elastic range. Nevertheless, as soon as any RC structural element is working in the inelastic range, it is possible to obtain the numerical prediction of its realistic behavior only through the use of non linear analysis. The aim of this work is to develop a new kind of Finite Element: the "Enhanced Solid Element (ESE)" which takes into account the complex composition of reinforced concrete, being able to handle each dissipative material behavior and their different deformations, and on the other hand, conserving a simplified shape for engineering applications. Based on the recent XFEM developments, we introduce the concept of nodal enrichment to represent kinematics of steel rebars as well as bonding. This enrichment allows to reproduce the strain incompatibility between concrete and steel that occurs because of the bond degradation and slip. This formulation was tested with a couple of simple examples and compared to the results obtained from other standard formulations.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.4D
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• pp.387-393
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• 2010

This paper studies static crack growth of asphalt pavement using the extended finite element method (XFEM). To consider nonlinear characteristics of asphalt concrete, a viscoelastic constitutive equation using the Maxwell chain is used. And a linear cohesive crack model is used to regularize the crack. Instead of constructing the viscoelastic constitutive law from the Prony approximation of compliance and retardation time measured experimentally, we use a smooth log-power function which optimally fits experimental data and is infinitely differentiable. The partial moduli of the Maxwell chain from the log-power function make analysis easy because they change more smoothly in a more stable way than the ordinary method such as the least square method. Using the developed method, we can simulates the static crack growth test results satisfactorily.