Fracture Processes of Concrete for NLFEA Methods

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Abstract
A numerical description of the fracture processes of concrete which is suitable for use with nonlinear finite element analysis (NLFEA) methods is presented. It is shown that when the rate of the fracture processes of concrete is controlled (e.g., by the use of steel reinforcement), these processes are adequately described by a procedure which allows a crack to occur only at the location where the stress conditions are most critical. Otherwise, the most realistic description is one which allows crack formation at all locations where the criteria for cracking are fulfilled during a given iteration. Furthermore, it is shown that numerical predictions are essentially unaffected by constant values of the shear retention factor (SRF) between 0.10 and 0.50. Simple recommendations are finally presented for the definition of realistic FE meshes and incremental loading procedures.