Nonlinear Analysis of Shear Dominant Prestressed Concrete Beams using ANSYS

This study reports the details of the finite element analysis of eleven shear critical partially prestressed concrete T-beams having steel fibers over partial or full depth. Prestressed T-beams having a shear span to depth ratio of 2.65 and 1.59 that failed in shear have been analyzed using the ‘ANSYS’ program. The ‘ANSYS’ model accounts for the nonlinearity, such as, bond-slip of longitudinal reinforcement, postcracking tensile stiffness of the concrete, stress transfer across the cracked blocks of the concrete and load sustenance through the bridging action of steel fibers at crack interface. The concrete is modeled using ‘SOLID65’- eight-node brick element, which is capable of simulating the cracking and crushing behavior of brittle materials. The reinforcement such as deformed bars, prestressing wires and steel fibers have been modeled discretely using ‘LINK8’ – 3D spar element. The slip between the reinforcement (rebars, fibers) and the concrete has been modeled using a ‘COMBIN39’- nonlinear spring element connecting the nodes of the ‘LINK8’ element representing the reinforcement and nodes of the ‘SOLID65’ elements representing the concrete. The ‘ANSYS’ model correctly predicted the diagonal tension failure and shear compression failure of prestressed concrete beams observed in the experiment. The capability of the model to capture the critical crack regions, loads and deflections for various types of shear failures in prestressed concrete beam has been illustrated.