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Materials Today: Proceedings 4 (2017) 9742–9746 www.materialstoday.com/proceedings

ICEMS 2016

Behavior of Plain Concrete Beam subjected to Three Point Bending

using Concrete Damaged Plasticity (CDP) Model
Jobin Georgea, Kalyana Rama J Sb*, Siva Kumar M. V. Na, Vasan Ab
a
National Institute of Technology (NIT), Warangal, 506004, India
b
Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani-Hyderabad Campus, Hyderabad, 500078, India

Abstract

Concrete is an integral part of construction industry which is widely used throughout the globe. Concrete being heterogeneous in
nature complicates the understanding of predicting its actual behavior under static or cyclic loading. Widespread use of concrete
has increased the urge to accurately predict the response and design of concrete structures more accurately. In this paper,
computer based simulation is carried out using Finite Element Analysis package- ABAQUS to study the Non-linear behavior of
concrete by Concrete Damaged Plasticity (CDP) model. CDP model is a modified form of Drucker-Prager criterion and it takes
into account the isotropic compressive and tensile plasticity of concrete to represent the inelastic behavior of concrete in
association with its isotropic damaged elasticity. Tensile cracking and compression crushing in concrete are taken into
consideration in this model. Load vs. Displacement curves were achieved for unreinforced concrete beams of various sizes
subjected to three-point bending test. Also, effect of mesh refinement on CDP model has been studied so as to accurately predict
the desired results

© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Selection and Peer-review under responsibility of International Conference on Recent Trends in Engineering and Material
Sciences (ICEMS-2016).

Keywords: concrete damage plasticity;ABAQUS;triangular element;three point bend;quadrilateral element

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +91-040-66303510; fax: +91-040-66303998.

E-mail address: kalyan@hyderabad.bits-pilani.ac.in

2214-7853 © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Selection and Peer-review under responsibility of International Conference on Recent Trends in Engineering and Material Sciences (ICEMS-
2016).
 Kalyana Rama J S / Materials Today: Proceedings 4 (2017) 9742–9746 9743

1. Introduction

As per the principles of strength of materials, the basic assumption for all materials is that they are homogenous.
Concrete, also for the need of simplification, has been assumed to be homogenous. All the design theories and
conclusions on the behavior of concrete have been derived on the basis of this assumption. However, in reality,
concrete is a complex mixture of cement, water and aggregates, which makes it a heterogeneous material. In
addition, it is quasi-brittle in nature. In the recent past, Study on damage of concrete has been of interest so as to
forecast its failure due to compression crushing and tensile cracking. Recent advancements in computational
simulations have paved the possibility of carrying out the design and analysis of concrete structures in a more
realistic manner. Non-linearity in concrete due to its complex composition has been given thought in this
constitutive modeling so as to faithfully capture the response of concrete. CDP model is a modified form of
Drucker-Prager criterion [1]. The model takes into account the isotropic compressive and tensile plasticity of
concrete to represent its inelastic behavior in association with its isotropic damaged elasticity [2]. Prior to continuum
damage mechanics concept, the non-linearity of concrete could have only been captured by plasticity theory, non-
linear elasticity or recent fracture theory, which is still being studied [3]. Although many discernible contributions
have been made in developing such constitutive modeling, the complete material parameters and features of
concrete could not be properly captured or acknowledged in the modeling [3]. This necessitates the development of
a damage induced constitutive modeling, which may fruitfully capture the behavior of concrete in practicality by
incorporating important experimentally-observed model parameters. Concrete requires special treatment in both
compression and tensile response to loading. Jankowiak and Lodygowski [4] have presented the procedures to
obtain the constitutive parameters essential for defining Concrete Damaged Plasticity (CDP) in ABAQUS. Grassl
and Jirasek have also proposed a constitutive model, which adopts strain based damage and stress based plasticity
approach to obtain more realistic response a concrete structure when subjected to multi axial loadings. Concrete
Damage plasticity was found to be more mesh sensitive than smeared crack modeling, in which, less variation of
stress values has been observed [5]. Fair comparison has been shown between the two models and the results have
been verified with the theoretical values of stresses formulated by Hognestad [7]. The main objective of the present
study is to estimate the actual response of concrete structures when subjected to three-point bending using
constitutive modeling.

2. Modeling

Finite element package ABAQUS 6.14 has been used to simulate the damage induced plasticity in concrete. Three
Point Bending (TPB) test has been carried out on beams of various sizes. To study the effect of beam sizes, the
spans to depth ratio of the specimens, as shown in Table 1, are considered to be 2.5, 4 and 8. Two dimensional
deformable shell structures have been considered. Material model parameters have been extracted from the
experimental results so as to faithfully capture the macroscopic features of the actual material concrete. Concrete
Damaged Plasticity model available in ABAQUS has been used to carry out the analysis. Stiffness degradation and
the damaged induced due to compression crushing and tensile cracking have been given as input in the model
considered in ABAQUS. The grade of concrete considered was M25 as per IS456. The beam is modeled using
CPS3- a 2-node linear plane stress triangular element and CPS4R type- a four node bilinear plane stress
quadrilateral element and their variations in terms of accuracy are also studied:

3. Results and Discussion

Figure 1 to Figure 3 show the plot between load and deflection for a simply supported beam with triangular and
quadrilateral meshing for a span to depth ratios of 2.5, 4 and 8. It was observed that the peak load for the
quadrilateral mesh was on the higher side compared to that of the triangular mesh. Figure 4 shows the behavior of a
beam with different sizes of beams and their span to depth ratios for a mesh size of 25. The behavior of beam for its
post peak response was gentle with a triangular mesh, which depicts the experimental behavior of beam under three-
point loading
9744 Kalyana Rama J S / Materials Today: Proceedings 4 (2017) 9742–9746

Table 1 Beam Dimensions of various Span/Depth (S/D) ratio considered

UB1 UB2 UB3 UB4 UB5 UB6 UB7 UB8 UB9

Span 250 500 1000 250 500 1000 250 500 1000

Depth 100 200 400 60 125 250 30 60 125

Width 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50
S/D
ratio 2.5 2.5 2.5 4 4 4 8 8 8

30

25 SMALL-TRIAN
SMALL-QUAD
20
Load (kN)

MEDIUM-TRIAN
15
MEDIUM-QUAD
10 LARGE-TRIAN
5 LARGE-QUAD

0
0 0.5 1 1.5
Deflection(mm)

Figure 1 Load vs. Deflection for span to depth ratio = 2.5

10

8
SMALL-TRIAN
Load (kN)

6 SMALL-QUAD

4 MEDIUM-TRIAN
MEDIUM-QUAD
2 LARGE-TRIAN

0 LARGE-QUAD
0 0.5 1 1.5
Deflection(mm)

Figure 2 Load vs. Deflection for span to depth ratio = 4

 Kalyana Rama J S / Materials Today: Proceedings 4 (2017) 9742–9746 9745

2.5

2
SMALL-TRIAN
Load (kN)

1.5 SMALL-QUAD
MEDIUM-TRIAN
1
MEDIUM-QUAD
0.5 LARGE-TRIAN
LARGE-QUAD
0
0 0.5 1 1.5
Deflection (mm)

Figure 3 Load vs. Deflection for span to depth ratio = 8

Figure 4 Load vs. Deflection for beams with triangular and quadrilateral meshing
9746 Kalyana Rama J S / Materials Today: Proceedings 4 (2017) 9742–9746

4. Conclusions

The numerical analysis (has) yielded the following findings:

1. The load carrying capacity of the beam decreases with the increase in span to depth ratio.
2. Slope of softening post peak curve was steep for triangular mesh compared to that of quadrilateral mesh
and in agreement with the standard experimental TPB tests. Quadrilateral type meshing gives results on a higher
side as compared to triangular type meshing and their difference increases with the increase in S/D ratio.
3. Concrete Damage Plasticity model was found to be mesh dependent, as the percentage difference between
peak loads and mesh size for triangular and quadrilateral mesh decreased with the increase in the number of
elements.
4. At a finer mesh, beam with triangular and quadrilateral elements are subjected to similar peak load.

References

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[3] Nguyen, G. D. (2005). A thermodynamic approach to constitutive modelling of concrete using damage mechanics and plasticity theory.
Oxford: University of Oxford.
[4] Jankowiak, T., & Lodygowski, T. (2005). Identification of parameters of concrete damage plasticity constitutive model. Foundations of civil
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