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An effective model for analysis of reinforced concrete members and structures

under blast loading

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DOI: 10.1177/1369433216649393

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Article

Advances in Structural Engineering

2016, Vol. 19(12) 1815–1831
An effective model for analysis of Ó The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1369433216649393

structures under blast loading ase.sagepub.com

Zhongxian Li1,2, Bo Zhong1 and Yanchao Shi1,2

Abstract
The traditional fiber beam model has been widely used in the seismic analysis of reinforced concrete members and structures.
However, the inability to capture shear failure restricts its application to blast loadings. In this article, a numerical model that considers
both rate-dependent shear behavior and damage effect is proposed based on the traditional fiber beam element. This is achieved using
the modified compression-field theory with a concrete damage model and bilinear steel model in the principal directions. Meanwhile,
a condensed three-dimensional stress–strain relation from the isotropic hardening plasticity model is implemented to simulate longitu-
dinal reinforcement bars, as large shear strain would be produced under severe blast loads. The proposed model is validated by com-
paring the numerical and test results. The high-fidelity physics-based finite element model, validated by the same experiment, is also
used in the study to prove the efficiency of the proposed model. Case studies of a reinforced concrete beam and a six-story rein-
forced concrete frame structure subjected to blast loads are then carried out. The results indicate that the proposed model is reliable
compared with the high-fidelity physics-based model. In addition to the accuracy, comparisons of the computational time show an
excellent performance with respect to the efficiency of the proposed model.

Keywords
blast loading, diagonal shear failure, fiber beam model, numerical simulation, reinforced concrete

Introduction element. This relatively longer-term dynamic behavior

With the increasing terrorist attacks and accidental
explosions, which may lead to a large number of casu-
alties and great economic losses, an increasing number
of researchers have turned their attention to the
response analysis of reinforced concrete (RC) members
and structures under blast loading to provide guidance
for protective designs (Crawford and Magallanes,
2011; Krauthammer, 2008, 2014; Li and Shi, 2015;
Williams and Williamson, 2011). When an RC mem-
ber is subjected to an intense transverse dynamic load,
for example, blast or impact, the propagation of elastic
and plastic waves along the transverse direction may
lead to a local failure by spalling, as illustrated in
Figure 1. For beam/column members, their transverse
dimension (thickness) is usually much smaller than the
main dimension (length) such that it takes much less
time for a stress wave to propagate through the former
dimension of the member, typically a few microse-
conds. The transverse stress wave propagates back and
forth several times and dramatically reduces to zero,
followed by the movement of each cross section as an
entirety, generating dynamic deformation along the
is called global structural response and usually takes
several milliseconds or much longer depending on the
structural properties. Under blast loading, the failure
modes of columns generally include breach, spalling,
direct shear, diagonal shear, flexure, or combined pat-
terns (Crawford and Magallanes, 2011). Among these
failure modes, diagonal shear failure is very common,
as can be observed in some blast experiments by
Karagozian & Case (K&C) (Crawford et al., 2012).
The brittle failure of RC columns can cause cata-
strophic collapse of structures, because they are critical
load-bearing components, resulting in a serious threat
to the safety of structures, personnel, and properties
(Krauthammer, 2014).
1
Key Laboratory of Coast Civil Structure Safety of Ministry of
Education, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China
2
School of Civil Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China
Corresponding author:
Zhongxian Li, School of Civil Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin
300072, China.
Email: zxli@tju.edu.cn
1816
Figure 1. Responses of RC columns under blast loading.
Currently available blast analysis methods for RC
components are typically based on the single-degree-
of-freedom (SDOF) system (Biggs, 1964), Euler–
Bernoulli beam theory (EBT) (Carta and Stochino,
2013), Timoshenko beam theory (TBT) (Krauthammer
et al., 1993a, 1993b, 1994), and high-fidelity physics-
based (HFPB) finite element (FE) methods (Bao and
Li, 2010; Crawford et al., 2012; Crawford and
Magallanes, 2011; Hao and Hao, 2014; Magnusson
et al., 2010; Shi et al., 2008). Although the SDOF
method has the capability to account for the combined
effects of flexure, shear, and axial force using a specifi-
cally derived resistance function, its overly simplified
assumption generally leads to unreliable and inaccu-
rate results (El-Dakhakhni et al., 2009). The EBT has
been used for the study of RC beams that failed in flex-
ure under blast loads (Carta and Stochino, 2013), while
this theory is inadequate for impact type loadings
because its governing equations are dispersive: both
the phase velocity and the group velocity are propor-
tional to the wave number, which means that the velo-
cities become infinite as the wavelength approaches
zero (Flügge and Zajac, 1959). However, experimental
observations indicate that the transverse motions of a
beam have a finite maximum wave speed irrespective
of the wavelength (Jones, 2011). As for the TBT, it is
able to account for not only rotatory inertia but also
shear deformation (Timoshenko, 1921); its governing
equations can be solved using the finite difference
(Krauthammer et al., 1993a, 1993b, 1994) or FE
(Dragos and Wu, 2014; Wu and Sheikh, 2013) formu-
lation, but the latter is more straightforward for a sub-
sequent whole structural analysis when it is
implemented in a general FE code, such as LS-DYNA
(Hallquist, 2007). Due to the high cost of blast experi-
mental programs and some limitations from security
concerns, the HFPB method has been widely adopted
by researchers for the analysis of RC columns (Bao
and Li, 2010; Shi et al., 2008; Williams and
Williamson, 2011) and structures (Jayasooriya et al.,
2011; Luccioni et al., 2004; Shi et al., 2010) against
Advances in Structural Engineering 19(12)
blast loads. Despite the popularity of the HFPB
method, it must be admitted that this method is com-
plex and requires excessive computational effort.
Meanwhile, considering various constitutive models of
concrete and steel materials, users may obtain very dif-
ferent analysis results for the same problem if the cho-
sen material models differ. Moreover, being limited by
current computer power, it is not practical to adopt
the HFPB method when analyzing the responses of
large frame structures subjected to blast loadings.
The fiber beam element model is a good compro-
mise between accuracy and efficiency for the analysis
of RC structures. It has been widely used in seismic
analysis (Neuenhofer and Filippou, 1997; Taucer et al.,
1991), and a state-of-the-art flexure–shear fiber beam
element has been reviewed by Ceresa et al. (2007).
However, only a few researchers have attempted to
analyze RC members under blast loads using the fiber
beam element model. Valipour et al. (2009) proposed
an improved fiber beam element model, which intro-
duced a shear cap at the section level to account for
possible shear failure, but it was unable to calculate the
correct shear demand excited by a blast load. Guner
and Vecchio (2012) developed a nonlinear dynamic
analysis method for shear-critical frames under impact,
blast, and seismic loads, which had the primary advan-
tage of accounting for shear effects, coupled with axial
and flexural behaviors. Nevertheless, the applications
for RC components and structures under blast loading
are still absent and the damage effect has not been well
considered. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an
appropriate numerical model based on the traditional
fiber beam (TFB) model in the general FE code that
can consider shear and damage effects and be suitable
for practical applications ranging from nonlinear
dynamic response to the progressive collapse analysis
of RC structures.
This study aims to improve the TFB model by con-
sidering shear and damage effects for the nonlinear
dynamic analysis of RC members and RC structures
under blast loading and to capture the global response
(diagonal shear, flexure–shear, and flexure) of the
members rather than local effects such as spalling. In
section ‘‘Proposed numerical model,’’ the proposed
numerical model is described in detail. The proposed
and HFPB models are calibrated in section ‘‘Model
validations,’’ using an RC column in a field test. Then,
the reliability and efficiency of the proposed model are
demonstrated thoroughly via analysis of an RC beam
and an RC frame structure in sections ‘‘Numerical
study of a blast-loaded RC beam,’’‘‘Response of a six-
story RC frame structure under blast loads,’’ and
‘‘Time consumption.’’ Discussions and conclusions
from the numerical results are summed up in the end.
Li et al.
Proposed numerical model
The proposed numerical model is based on the TFB
model available in the general FE code LS-DYNA
(Hallquist, 2006), which is incrementally objective
(rigid body rotations do not generate strains, which
allows for the treatment of finite strains that occur in
many practical applications) and computationally effi-
cient. Furthermore, it also includes finite transverse
shear strains that take the shear effect of components
into consideration if a proper shear model is adopted.
Moreover, applications to structural analysis (even
progressive collapse) are straightforward in the frame-
work of LS-DYNA when the proposed model is
implemented.
RC components generally suffer severe shear defor-
mations and material damage due to intense blast
loads, possibly leading to the progressive collapse of
RC structures. As a consequence, the primary function
of the proposed model is to properly account for the
shear and damage effects of RC composite material.
Moreover, correctly considering the shear behavior of
longitudinal reinforcement bars is also essential under
large shear strains. These can be achieved using the
modified compression-field theory (MCFT) (Vecchio
and Collins, 1986) with a rate-dependent concrete
damage model and bilinear steel model in the principal
directions. Moreover, the constitutive behaviors for
longitudinal reinforcement bars are condensed from
the 3D stress–strain of the isotropic hardening plasti-
city model to account for correct shear demands under
large shear strains.
Constitutive models
To take the damage effects of RC components into
account in the proposed model for blast analysis, the
concrete damage model proposed by Mazars and
Figure 2. Schematic of concrete damage model: (a) Mazars model and (b) exponential form for tension damage.
1817
Pijaudier-Cabot (1989) is adopted. The model is
described by the stress–strain relation
s = (1  D)C : e ð1Þ
damage law
D = g(k) ð2Þ
and loading–unloading conditions
f (e, k) = eeq (e)  k ł 0, _ (e, k) = 0
k_ ø 0, kf ð3Þ
with
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
u 3
uX
eeq = t (hei i)2 ð4Þ
i=1
where s and e are the stress and strain tensors, respec-
tively; C is the elastic stiffness tensor, D is the scalar
damage variable, which varies from 0 to 1 (0 for intact
material and 1 for full failure of the material), eeq is the
scalar measure called equivalent strain, ei (i = 1, 2, 3)
are the principal strains, and k is an internal variable
that equals the maximum equivalent strain ever
reached in the history of the material.
The shape of the stress–strain curve is controlled by
the specific expressions of the damage function in
Figure 2(a). In this study, except for the damage law
originating from Mazars’ model, a simple damage law
in exponential form for tension is also incorporated in
the code, as shown in Figure 2(b). The strain rate effect
is considered using the empirical relationship proposed
by Malvar and Ross (1998) through the adjustment of
the parameters in the constitutive model.
When RC members suffer significant shear defor-
mations near the supports, the dowel action of the
longitudinal reinforcement bars may contribute much
1818
to the shear resistance. Therefore, the isotropic hard-
ening plasticity model (Chen and Han, 2012) is imple-
mented in this study to model the longitudinal
reinforcement bars, because the shear stress is consid-
ered in the yield function. The yield condition of this
model is as follows
3
f = s2i  s2sy = sij sij  s2sy = 0 ð5Þ
2
where
ssy = ss0 + bEp epeff ð6Þ
and the effective plastic strain increment can be derived
as follows
si  ssy
Depeff = ð7Þ
3G + Ep
Scaling back the stress deviators
3GDepeff
sij = sij  sij ð8Þ
si
where si is the stress intensity, ss0 and ssy are the ini-
tial and current yield limit, respectively, sij is the devia-
toric stress tensor, b is the hardening parameter, Ep is
the plastic hardening modulus, epeff is the effective plas-
tic strain, and sij is the trial deviatoric stress tensor.
A condensation has to be made to the steel 3D
stress–strain relation for adoption in beam elements.
The first step is to compute the trial stress, assuming
that the incremental strains are elastic. When the trial
stress is outside the yield surface, a secant iteration is
used to solve equation (8) for the strain increments De2
and De3 to produce zero normal stresses s2 and s3 .
The secant iteration scheme is formulated in equation
(9), and the normal strains in the y- and z-directions
are calculated until the energy norm estimated by
equation (10) is kept within the designated tolerance.
Moreover, the dynamic increase factor (DIF) of the
yield strength of steel is obtained from Malvar (1998),
depending on the strain rate
Figure 3. Schematic of Hughes-Liu beam element model.
Advances in Structural Engineering 19(12)
Denk  Den1
Denk + 1 = Den1
k  k
sn1
k (k = 2, 3) ð9Þ
snk  sn1
k
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
s22 + s23 \tolerance (e:g: 1:0e  8) ð10Þ
Stress updating formulation
A fixed shear strain pattern is assumed in the section
level, as it is impossible to determine the actual distri-
bution of shear strains and stresses in advance. The
fixed strain pattern is inspired by the plane section
hypothesis, which tries to establish relationships
between the section’s shear deformation and shear
strain distribution, sectional internal forces, and shear
stress distribution. As mentioned in Garcia and Bernat
(2007), although the fixed strain approach does not
guarantee compatibility between the fibers, it still gives
satisfactory results in the analysis of the shear resistant
mechanism of RC sections; in this way, the computa-
tional intensity and time decrease dramatically com-
pared with the inter-fiber equilibrium approach.
Moreover, this method is stable and applicable for the
post-peak stage, which is very necessary for the possi-
ble failure of RC components and collapse of RC
structures. Therefore, the strain field of a cross section
is a superposition of the classical plane section hypoth-
esis for the normal axial strain and fixed constant
shear strain, as shown in Figure 3.
In this study, the secant stiffness formulation is
adopted, because it has the outstanding characteristics
of excellent convergence and numerical stability. The
stress updating process stated by Guner and Vecchio
(2010) is adopted, which is simply described as follows.
The total strains are assumed to consist of concrete
net strain and concrete plastic offset strain, and a per-
fect bond between the concrete and reinforcement bar
is assumed, resulting in the following expression
2 3
ex
½e = ½ec  + ½epc  = ½es  + ½eps  = 4 ey 5 ð11Þ
gxy
Li et al. 1819

Figure 4. Determination of secant moduli for concrete and steel reinforcement.

where e is the total strain; ec and epc are concrete net where Tc is the transformation matrix, given by
strain and concrete plastic strain, respectively; es and 2 3
eps are steel net strain and steel plastic strain, respec- cos2 u sin2 u sin u cos u
tively; ex , ey , and g xy are the components of the total ½Tc  = 4 sin2 u cos2 u  sin u cos u 5
strain in the global system. 2 sin u cos u 2 sin u cos u cos2 u  sin2 u
ex and g xy are known from the main program. To ð19Þ
calculate the principal strains in the fiber, ey should be
assumed in advance; then, the principal strains, ec1 and The steel reinforcement material stiffness matrix for
ec2 , can be calculated easily. The corresponding princi- the global axes can be assembled as follows
pal stresses, fc1 and fc2 , are calculated using the uniaxial 2 3
constitutive model as described in section ‘‘HFPB rx 3 Esx 0 0
model.’’ The concrete and reinforcement material secant ½Ds  = 4 0 ry 3 Esy 05 ð20Þ
moduli are obtained based on Figure 4 as follows 0 0 0
where rx and ry are the smeared reinforcement ratios
 c1 = fc1
E ð12Þ in the x- and y-directions, respectively.
ec1 The resulting composite material stiffness matrix is
assembled as follows
 c2 = fc2
E ð13Þ
ec2
½D = ½Dc  + ½Ds  ð21Þ
 
 c = Ec1 3 Ec2
G ð14Þ The stress matrix required is calculated using the
 c1 + E
E  c2
following expression
 sx = fsx
E ð15Þ
esx ½s = ½D 3 ½e  ½s0  ð22Þ

 sy = fsy
E ð16Þ
where
esy 2 3
S01
where E c1 and E
 c2 are the secant moduli of concrete in ½s0  = 4 S02 5
the principal directions, respectively; G c is the shear S03
 
modulus; Esx and Esy are the secant modulus of steel in
the x- and y-directions, respectively. is the stress matrix derived from the plastic offset strain
Then, the concrete material stiffness matrix in the as shown in Figure 4.
principal directions can be written as follows The assumption that there are no clamping stresses
in the transverse direction is considered here, as
2 3
Ec1 0 0 demonstrated in section ‘‘Introduction,’’ such that the
½Dc 0 = 4 0 Ec2 0 5 ð17Þ stress along the thickness dramatically decreases to
0 0 Gc zero after the wave reflects and unloads several times.
According to equation (22), the expression of sy can
and can be transformed to the global axes as follows be obtained as follows

½Dc  = ½Tc T 3 ½Dc 0 3 ½Tc  ð18Þ sy = D21 3 ex + D22 3 ey + D23 3 gxy  S02 ð23Þ
1820
Figure 5. Flow chart of the proposed numerical model in LS-DYNA.
After forcing sy = 0, a new value of ey is calculated
using equation (24)
D21 3 ex  D23 3 gxy + S02
ey = ð24Þ
D22
Using the newly calculated ey , new principal stresses
are derived and the above calculations are repeated
until a specific tolerance of sy is achieved. Then, nor-
mal stress sx and shear stress txy at the fiber state are
updated using the following expressions
sx = D11 3 ex + D12 3 ey + D13 3 gxy  S01 ð25Þ
t xy = D31 3 ex + D32 3 ey + D33 3 g xy  S03 ð26Þ
Implementation
The proposed numerical model is implemented in the
general FE code LS-DYNA through user-defined
interfaces. The flow chart of the numerical solution
procedure is presented in Figure 5. Because an explicit
formulation is used, there is no need to generate the
tangent stiffness matrix. Hence, it is possible to capture
the strong nonlinear behavior of the RC members
when the material undergoes severe damage.
Model validations
To validate the proposed model, test results reported
in the reference (Crawford et al., 2012) are used.
Advances in Structural Engineering 19(12)
Simulations using the TFB model are also conducted
to demonstrate the improvement and accuracy of the
proposed model. Moreover, to prove the efficiency of
the proposed model, the HFPB method, commonly
used by a number of research groups (Bao and Li,
2010; Jayasooriya et al., 2011; Luccioni et al., 2004;
Shi et al., 2008, 2010; Williams and Williamson, 2011),
is also adopted as the benchmark simulation so that
the computational times of different cases, as well as
the computational accuracies, can be compared.
Therefore, the experimental data from the test are also
used to check the reliability of the HFPB model.
The properties of the specimen are briefly
introduced below.
The CTEST20 column is taken from a series of
standalone column tests (Crawford et al., 2012) and
has a clear height of 3277 mm. The column has a
squared cross section with a size of 355.6 mm. Eight
#8 (25.4 mm (1 in.)) longitudinal reinforcements are
uniformly spaced along the perimeter of the section,
and #3 (9.5 mm (0.375 in)) stirrup reinforcements are
distributed along the length with a spacing of 324 mm.
An axial load of 444.8 kN is applied to the column
first, and then the top end of the column is fixed;
finally, the explosives are detonated to generate the
nonlinear dynamic response. As the mass of an explo-
sive charge is not released for security concerns, a blast
load with a peak overpressure of 49.1 MPa and dura-
tion of 0.62 ms, which were computed in the reference,
is used in this study.
Li et al.
The unconfined compressive strength of concrete
measured in the test is fc0 = 41:4 MPa. A yield stress
and tensile stress of fy = 475 MPa and fu = 751 MPa,
respectively, are used for reinforcement bars in the
numerical analysis, as recommended by K&C.
HFPB model
For all the HFPB simulations in this article, concrete
is modeled with solid elements and reinforcement bars
are modeled with beam elements, while the interaction
between concrete and rebar is implicitly captured by
the behavior of the concrete. As is well known, the
numerical results are mesh-dependent if the descending
branch of the constitutive model is considered. On one
hand, a very fine mesh is needed for shock wave pro-
pagation to transmit the blast energy to the structure.
On the other hand, concrete materials soften after the
peak stress, which causes localization of the strain to a
narrow band if the constitutive model is not equipped
with a characteristic length, leading to FE solutions
exhibiting spurious mesh sensitivity, losing objectivity
with regard to the choice of the mesh (Pijaudier-Cabot
and Bažant, 1987).
The third release of the K&C model, generally used
in blast analysis for concrete material and available
in LS-DYNA as *MAT_CONCRETE_DAMAGE_
REL3 (Hallquist, 2007), is chosen for the simulation
of concrete material because it has been proven reliable
in many previous studies. Shear strength enhancement
factor versus effective strain rate is defined by a curve,
which is obtained from Malvar and Ross (1998). There
are a total of three parameters in this concrete model
that controls the damage evolution. They are b1, b2,
and v, that is, compression damage, tensile damage,
and volume expansion, respectively.
As for the compression softening behavior, the
default value of compression softening parameter b1 is
correct only for a 4-in (101.6 mm) element, which
means it must be adjusted by the users to reflect the ele-
ment sizes. An empirical expression for b1 was devel-
oped by K&C (Crawford et al., 2012), which is as
follows
b1 = 0:34h + 0:79 ð27Þ
where h is the element size (in).
The tensile damage exhibited by the model is con-
sidered using the fracture energy and tension softening
parameter b2 and is affected by the element and aggre-
gate sizes. As is stated by Magallanes et al. (2010), the
regularization method ceases to be valid when the ele-
ments are much smaller than the localization width wL
(the parameter ‘‘LOCWID’’ on the input cards), and as
is well known, quite small element sizes are especially
1821
required in the blast analysis of structural responses.
Therefore, an expression based on Malvar’s work (Wu
et al., 2014) is used in this study
b2 = (0:09w2L  0:98wL + 3:06)
ð28Þ
(1  0:004fc02 + 0:097fc0  0:484)
where wL is in the units of ‘‘inch’’ and fc0 is the uncon-
fined compressive strength of concrete in units
of ‘‘ksi.’’
v is the very important parameter that controls the
volume expansion of concrete to affect the shear-
dilatancy behaviors, which has been discussed deeply
by Crawford et al. (2013). The suggested value is 0.75
without confinement and 0.90 in a confined case.
Reinforcement bars play an important role in the
analysis of RC components and structures under blast
loading. A true stress and strain relationship is gener-
ally needed in simulations. After the engineering
stress–strain data are transformed into a true form, it
is implemented in LS-DYNA using the material model
*MAT_PIECEWISE_LINEAR_PLASTICITY
(Hallquist, 2007), which allows an arbitrary stress ver-
sus strain curve to be defined and a plastic failure
strain to be specified to mimic the fracture. The strain
rate effect is accounted for using the Cowper and
Symonds model (Hallquist, 2006).
TFB model
To illustrate the advantages of the proposed numerical
model, the TFB model available in LS-DYNA is also
used for all numerical examples. In this study, the
material model *MAT_CONCRETE_BEAM is used
for concrete fibers. An effective stress versus effective
plastic strain curve is defined to model the concrete
nonlinear behavior, and the strain rate effect is also
considered using a load curve obtained from Malvar
and Ross (1998). The longitudinal reinforcement
fibers are modeled using *MAT_PIECEWISE_
LINEAR_PLASTICITY, as stated in section ‘‘HFPB
model.’’ Note that the Hughes-Liu beam element for-
mulation requires that different material models used
in the same section have the same number of history
variables; here, both have 5 (Hallquist, 2007).
Validation of models
Mesh size convergence tests are carried out using mesh
sizes of 12.7, 25.4, and 50.8 mm for both the concrete
and reinforcements in the HFPB model, and it is found
that the mesh size of 25.4 mm is appropriate for the
simulations. And the mesh size effect on the material
softening is also considered by adjusting the damage
parameters b1, b2, and v, according to the
1822 Advances in Structural Engineering 19(12)

Table 1. Values for key parameters in HFPB model. Table 3. Values for key parameters in proposed model.

b1 b2 b3 v Loc width (mm) e0 Ac Bc ef

1.13 2.07 1.15 0.75 25.4 0.0015 1.1054 1178.51 0.0058

Table 2. Values for key parameters in TFB model.

ep s (MPa)

0.0 12.4
9.3e24 41.4
0.1611 0.0
0.2 0.0

corresponding equations in section ‘‘HFPB model’’

(listed in Table 1), while the other concrete parameters
are automatically generated by LS-DYNA. To capture
the possible spalling of the concrete material, the ero-
sion technique is implemented for the concrete cover. Figure 6. Comparison of mid-height displacement time
A maximum principle stress of 10 MPa is defined as history.
the erosion criterion in this study. The top end is free
to move along the z-axis to allow the initial axial load
to be applied in the first load stage, and then it is fixed
at the time when the blast load is applied.
A beam element size of approximately 83 mm (a
total of 40 elements) is adopted in both the TFB model
and the proposed numerical model. The parameter
that controls the strain rate effect in the proposed
numerical model is set to 1 (ignore strain rate effect for
0). The key parameters for concrete materials are listed
in Tables 2 and 3.
The transverse displacements at the mid-height of
the column from the test and simulations are com-
pared in Figure 7. As can be observed in Figure 6, both
the HFPB model and the proposed model predict the Figure 7. Comparison of shear force histories.
maximum displacement at mid-span excellently with
the test result. However, the maximum displacement
calculated by the TFB model is only 64.8 mm, which is
much smaller than the test result of 175.3 mm. The smaller residual value. A more precise concrete plastic
numerically simulated residual displacements are 113, damage model may improve the predictions, although
98, and 55 mm for the HFPB model, the proposed it may also increase both the complexity and computa-
model, and the TFB model, respectively, and the tested tional cost.
residual displacement is 109 mm. Obviously, the Figure 7 shows the base shear force histories
HFPB model predicts the best result for both the maxi- obtained from the HFPB model and the proposed
mum mid-span displacement and the residual displace- model. The peak values predicted by the two models
ment, as the concrete material model captures both the are 2137.1 and 2077.4 kN, respectively, and the differ-
shear effect and damage level very well. The proposed ence is only 2.8%, indicating a good performance of
model also satisfactorily predicts the maximum mid- the developed model. Note that the shear force calcu-
span displacement, but the residual displacement is lated by the TFB model is not included in this figure
10% less compared with the test results. The most pos- because the peak shear is 6800 kN, which is a consid-
sible reason is that the Mazars model used in the prin- erably larger value compared with 2137.1 kN.
cipal directions of the RC material does not account A very important aspect of analyzing RC columns
for any plastic strain in concrete, which leads to a under blast loads involves compression-membrane
Li et al. 1823

Figure 8. Comparison of axial force histories.

behavior. It is a resistance mechanism attributed to the

fixity of a column’s supports, also referred to as arching,
that generates from column growth. As stated earlier, Figure 9. Final deformation state of the column, obtained
the top end of the column is fixed when the lateral blast from the (a) proposed model, (b) HFPB model, and (c) TFB
load is applied; thus, the compression-membrane beha- model.
vior can be captured by all three models. Figure 8 illus-
trates that a large compressive axial load exists in the
column, causing an overestimation of the compression-
membrane mechanism when the TFB model is used.
The axial force history curves of both the HFPB model
and the proposed model show that the axial force first
increases in compression and then changes to tension,
which implies the transformation of the compression-
membrane mechanism to a tension-membrane mechan-
ism, indicating the occurrence of a shear failure under
blast loading. Whereas the TFB model fails to capture
Figure 10. Geometry and section details of the RC beam.
such shear failure, as shown in Figure 8, the proposed
model successfully predicts the transformation, with,
however, significantly lower tensile force (1092.6 kN)
compared with 2456.5 kN of the HFPB model. This analysis of a RC column subjected to a specific blast
can possibly be attributed to the differences in consider- loading scenario. To comprehensively demonstrate the
feasibility of the proposed model, a 4-m long RC beam
ing the concrete damage effect between the two models.
with two fixed ends (Figure 10) subjected to blast load-
Figure 9 shows the final failure mode of the column
ing is used as an example. The beam element has a rec-
from the proposed model, HFPB model, and TFB
tangular cross section of 200 mm 3 400 m, with four
model. Apparently, the HFPB model well predicts a
20 mm longitudinal reinforcement bars at each corner.
diagonal shear failure mode, and even the spalling of
Stirrup reinforcements with a diameter of 10 mm are
the concrete material is well captured. The failure mode
placed along the beam with a constant spacing of
obtained from the proposed model matches very well
200 mm. The load is assumed to be uniformly distribu-
with the HFPB model, whereas only a flexural deforma-
ted over the whole length of the beam. The natural
tion mode is observed from the TFB model, demon-
vibration period of the beam is 10.8 ms, which is
strating a significant improvement and the accuracy of
obtained from modal analysis in LS-DYNA. Four
the proposed model when it is used in the blast analysis
load cases are considered in this study, as outlined in
of RC columns under severe blast loading.
Table 4, of which case 1 corresponds to an impulsive
range with a relatively small peak overpressure, case 2
Numerical study of a blast-loaded RC follows in the impulsive range but with a large peak
overpressure, case 3 doubles the peak overpressure of
beam
case 2, and case 4 belongs to the dynamic range, with
In section ‘‘Validation of models,’’ the HFPB model the same impulse of case 2 but with a much smaller
and the proposed model were validated through the overpressure and much longer duration (Table 4).
1824 Advances in Structural Engineering 19(12)

Table 4. Blast load parameters for different cases. small peak overpressure and duration, which means a
small impulse. The peak displacement is only approxi-
Case Peak overpressure (MPa) Duration (ms) mately 1.2 mm and the shear stress in the outer con-
1 1 1 crete fiber is below 1.5 MPa; thus, the beam is still in
2 20 1 the linear elastic stage.
3 40 1 For load case 2, the peak overpressure is increased
4 1 20 to 20 MPa, which is intense enough to induce strong
nonlinear behavior of the beam, especially severe shear
damage near the support. Figure 12 shows the com-
A 20 mm element size is chosen for the HFPB parison of the results of the beam subjected to load
model based on a convergence study, and the damage case 2 using different models. It can be observed from
parameters for the concrete constitutive model are Figure 12(a) that the peak displacement at mid-span
determined according to section ‘‘HFPB model.’’ For predicted by the HFPB, TFB, and proposed models
TFB and the proposed models, an element length of are 57.1, 46.6, and 58.6, respectively. Compared to the
50 mm is adopted, as it was found that using smaller HFPB model, the TFB model underestimates the
element size had a negligible effect on the results, and response by 18.4%. The proposed model predicts a
the softening parameters (plastic strain in the descend- very close value compared with the HFPB model. The
ing branch for the TFB model and ef for the proposed comparison of shear force histories near the support in
model) of the constitutive models are adopted accord- Figure 12(b) shows that the TFB model generates
ing to the crack band theory (Bažant and Oh, 1983). larger maximum shear forces in the loading phase than
Figure 11 shows the time histories of mid-span dis- the HFPB and proposed models, while the proposed
placement, shear force, and axial force from the simu- model matches the HFPB model quite well. The axial
lations using different models under loading case 1. As force time histories shown in Figure 12(c) indicate that
observed, the results match very well for all the models. the shear failure of the RC beam is captured by both
This is because the impulsive load case has relatively the proposed and HFPB models because the axial

Figure 11. Displacement, shear force and axial force time history for case 1: (a) mid-span displacement, (b) shear force, and (c)
axial force.
Li et al.
Figure 12. Displacement, shear force and axial force time history for case 2: (a) mid-span displacement, (b) shear force, and (c) axial force.
force decreases dramatically, while the TFB model
cannot. The reason for the huge difference is obvious.
The RC beam undergoes severe shear damage near the
support, which can be captured easily by the HFPB
model, because the constitutive model of concrete used
has three shear failure surfaces. Meanwhile, because
the shear and damage effects are also incorporated in
the proposed model, both the maximum mid-span dis-
placement and shear demand show a good fit, except
for the residual displacement due to the ignorance of
plastic deformation in Mazars’ model, as mentioned
before. Nevertheless, the concrete constitutive model
used in the TFB model is elasto-plastic, which cannot
account for the nonlinear shear and damage effects of
concrete material, resulting in underestimation of the
deformation and overestimation of the shear demand
near the beam support.
A more intense impulsive load is considered in case
3 to demonstrate the capability of the proposed model
in capturing the shear and damage effect under severe
blast loading. As observed in Figure 13(a), the beam
exhibits a shear-flexural failure mode. The maximum
mid-span displacements are 278.4 and 275.7 mm for
the HFPB model and the proposed model, respectively,
with a discrepancy less than 1%. Moreover, the shear
1825
demands also match very well for these two models,
with values of 1720.1 and 1817.2 kN, respectively, a
difference of approximately 5%. The axial loading
capacity of the RC beam calculated by both the pro-
posed and HFPB models is almost lost at 10 ms, as
indicated in Figure 13(c). Because the overpressure and
impulse are both twice those in load case 2, the shear
damage is much more severe.
Load case 4, with a duration time of 20 ms, belongs
to the dynamic range, as the natural vibration period
of the RC beam is 10.8 ms. The ratio of loading dura-
tion and natural period is \2. Figure 14 shows that
the first peak value of both the displacement at mid-
span and shear force near the support fit quite well for
all three models, while the first peak value of the axial
force shows some difference between the proposed and
HFPB models. And the values begin to diverge mark-
edly from each other after the first peak, resulting in
different residual displacements and free vibrations.
This is caused by certain flexural damages of the RC
beam. As shown in Figure 14(a), the free vibration
periods of the beam are 14.22 and 15.11 ms for the
HFPB model and the proposed model, respectively,
while that for the TFB model still remains at approxi-
mately 10.8 ms, which indicates that no damage can
1826 Advances in Structural Engineering 19(12)

Figure 13. Displacement, shear force and axial force time history for case 3: (a) mid-span displacement, (b) shear force, and (c) axial force.

Figure 14. Displacement, shear force and axial force time history for case 4: (a) mid-span displacement, (b) shear force, and (c)
axial force.
Li et al.
Figure 15. Shear stress time history of outer concrete fiber near column support: (a) proposed model and (b) TFB model.
be captured because the constitutive models do not
account for any damage effect.
Figure 15 shows the shear stress time history of an
outer concrete fiber near the beam support, obtained
from the proposed and TFB models. Because the
response of the beam is in the elastic stage for case 1,
its shear stress history is not plotted in the figures. The
maximum shear stresses of case 2 and case 3, calcu-
lated by the TFB model, in Figure 15(b) reach 20 and
40 MPa, respectively, which are overly large values for
concrete because the nonlinear shear behavior is not
considered, leading to underestimated deformations
and overestimated shear demand, as stated before. In
contrast, the values obtained by the proposed model in
Figure 15(a) are 13.0 and 15.2 MPa. For load case 4,
because only a weak nonlinear behavior is expected
near the support, the shear stress calculated by the
proposed and TFB models matches relatively well.
Response of a six-story RC frame
structure under blast loads
To further demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed
model in the analysis of structural responses under
explosive loadings, a six-story RC frame structure is
modeled in this section. The six-story RC frame struc-
ture has three bays with a span of 4 m along the x-axis
and two bays with a span of 4 m along the y-axis, as
shown in Figure 16. The dimensions of all beams and
columns are 300 mm 3 300 mm. Beams and columns
consist of four longitudinal reinforcements placed at
the four corners, with diameters of 16 and 20 mm,
respectively, and stirrup reinforcements with a dia-
meter of 10 mm are spaced 200 mm apart for both
beams and columns. The floor slab is 100 mm thick,
with a steel layer in the middle. The compressive
strength of concrete is assumed to be 30 MPa, and a
1827
bilinear stress–strain relationship is used for reinforce-
ments, with a yield strength of 335 MPa and ultimate
strength of 480 MPa. The static load applied to the
slab is 2.0 kN/m2 and that to the top face of the beams
is 60 kN/m2, considering the weight of the infill walls.
The blast load is assumed to have a peak overpressure
of 20 MPa and duration time of 1 ms. Only one col-
umn on the ground floor (column C1 in Figure 16) has
the blast load applied to it for simplicity.
Three FE models are developed to study the
response characteristics of the RC frame under blast
loading. As outlined in Table 5, M1 is regarded as an
efficient model, with a fiber beam element representing
both beams and columns and layered-shell element
representing floor slabs, and the newly proposed
model is used for column C1, which is directly sub-
jected to the blast load; M2 is considered as a bench-
mark model, with solid elements representing concrete
and beam elements representing reinforcement bars.
To demonstrate the superiority of the proposed model
to the TFB model, the efficient model, with column C1
simulated by the TFB model, is also analyzed, denoted
as M3.
An overview of M1, M2, and M3 used in the analy-
sis is shown in Figure 16. Label A is the node at the
middle of the loaded column, while label B is the node
at the middle of the joint above the loaded column. To
reduce computational effort, from 0 to 50 ms, a com-
bination of dead loads and live loads is applied to the
frame; then, the blast load acting on the column is
applied at t = 200 ms, and the analysis is terminated
at t = 1000 ms.
Figure 17 gives the time history of the transverse
displacement of node A along the y-direction; as
shown in this figure, the first peak values are + 88.1,
+ 76.1, and + 43.6 mm for M1, M2, and M3, respec-
tively. Finally, residual displacements of + 64.7,
1828 Advances in Structural Engineering 19(12)

Figure 16. Schematic of the three FE models for the RC frame structure.

Table 5. Descriptions of the three FE models.

FE model Description

M1 TFB model for beams and columns, layered-shell element for slabs, and the proposed model for column C1
(14,400 shell elements and 3120 beam elements)
M2 Solid element for concrete, beam element for longitudinal and transverse reinforcements (822,816 solid elements,
128,000 shell elements, and 226,848 beam elements)
M3 TFB model for beams and columns, layered-shell element for slabs (14,400 shell elements and 3120 beam
elements)

Figure 17. Transverse displacement time history of node A. Figure 18. Vertical displacement time history of node B.

+ 65.1, and + 33.7 mm are captured by the models. are approximately + 11.3 and + 8.0 mm for M1 and
When node A undergoes transverse displacement, the M2, respectively, while it is approximately 24.1 mm
vertical displacement of node B is increased along the for M3. This indicates that an overly compression-
z-direction; as can be observed in Figure 18, the values membrane mechanism is formed through beam growth
Li et al.
Figure 19. Axial force time history of column C1.
in the TFB model, because it cannot capture any shear
damage near the supports. The axial load initially sup-
ported by column C1 has to seek an alternative load
path when the column loses its load capacity. As pre-
sented in Figure 19, column C1 still has certain resi-
dual axial capacity for M1 and M2, which means that
only part of the axial load sustained by column C1
needs to be redistributed by the adjacent columns.
Note that the axial load sustained by column C1 in
M3 is increased due to the added resistance from the
compression-membrane mechanism, as can be
observed in Figure 19. The most possible reason for
the differences between M1 and M2 can be attributed
to the difference of blast damage captured by them,
which results in a different post-blast behavior.
Meanwhile, simplifications of the joint regions and
floor systems in the proposed model may also contrib-
ute to the divergent results, and a more reliable model
that accounts for these critical aspects is currently
under research. However, the improvements of the
proposed model are apparent for the analysis of large-
scale RC frames under blast loading.
Time consumption
The reliability of the proposed model has been demon-
strated in the previous numerical analyses. The above
numerical simulations were all carried out on a desk-
top computer with 3.4 GHz CPU frequency and 8G
memory. As shown in Table 6, the total elapsed time
of the HFPB model and the proposed model of the col-
umn calculated in section ‘‘Validation of models’’ are
39 min 1 s and 51 s, respectively. For the RC beam in
section ‘‘Numerical study of a blast-loaded RC beam,’’
only the computational time of case 2 is compared,
because the four cases are almost identical with respect
to time consumption. They are 13 min 52 s and 5 s for
the HFPB model and the proposed model,
1829
Table 6. Comparisons of computational time between the
proposed and HFPB models.
RC RC beam RC
column (case 2) structure
Proposed model 51 s 5s 3 h 7 min
HFPB model 39 min 1 s 13 min 52 s 15 h 29 min
respectively, proving a very significant advancement of
the proposed model in saving computational time
while assuring accuracy. The simulation time for the
benchmark model and the proposed model of the six-
story RC frame structure in section ‘‘Response of a
six-story RC frame structure under blast loads’’ is 15 h
29 min and 3 h 7 min, respectively. Obviously, the pro-
posed model greatly reduces the amount of computa-
tional time for the analysis, making it a promising
model for the possible progressive collapse analysis of
large-scale RC structures under blast loading.
Conclusion
This article proposes a numerical model to account for
both diagonal shear behavior and damage effects
(excluding material losses from spalling) based on the
TFB model. The proposed model is implemented in
the general FE code LS-DYNA, making it convenient
for the dynamic analysis of both RC components and
structures under blast loading. The diagonal shear fail-
ure of RC components and the transformation of
resistance mechanisms from compression-membrane
to tension-membrane are captured efficiently. The
computational time is substantially reduced in all the
analyses compared with the HFPB model. The reliabil-
ity and efficiency of the proposed model provide great
potential for progressive collapse analysis and the
design of RC structures under blast loads.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial sup-
port for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article: The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial sup-
port of the National Natural Science Foundation of China
under grant number 51238007 and the Special Research
Fund for Doctoral Disciplines of Colleges of Ministry of
Education of China under grant number 20120032110049 for
carrying out this research.
1830
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