Numerical modeling of reinforced concrete continuous deep beams

Abstract

This paper presents a study of the behavior of reinforced concrete continuous deep beams by numerical simulation, where results of the numerical analysis are calibrated and validated from existing experimental results in the international literature. In the modeling, a bilinear model is considered with Von Mises failure criteria for reinforcing steel and Concrete Damage Plasticity for concrete, where a good correspondence was achieved between the numerical results to estimate the load capacity and the displacement between the reference numerical and experimental results. The adequate calibration of the physical-mechanical diagram of the experiment allows numerically studying the influence of different geometric factors and reinforcement configurations. The numerical study evidences the influence of the main and vertical reinforcements in the load capacity of these structures, where the most significant contribution of the vertical reinforcement is found in beams with higher shear spaneffective depth ratio (a/d). Diagrams of continuous deep beams with circular web openings are analyzed, showing favorable positions for the location of these openings and their direct influence on the load capacity reduction for beam diagrams with concentrated and distributed load.