Response of Reinforced Concrete Elements to Severe Impulsive Loads

Abstract

A numerical approach is proposed for the analysis of reinforced concrete beams and one‐way slabs under severe dynamic loads, accounting for arbitrary support conditions and nonlinear effects. In addition, the behavior and modeling of reinforced concrete members subjected to localized dynamic loads have been examined. For a dynamic analysis, it was necessary to compute the deformed configuration of the structural element at every load step and to employ that information for computing the parameters of an equivalent dynamic model. The approach is based on the development of corresponding structural resistance functions, which are then employed in single‐degree‐of‐freedom analyses. A number of reinforced concrete structural elements, that were tested by other investigators, have been analyzed to evaluate the validity and demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach. The analysis was performed for reinforced concrete beams subjected to impact loads and for reinforced concrete walls subjected to detonations of high explosive devices.