Dissipative Homogenised Reinforced Concrete (DHRC) constitutive model dedicated to reinforced concrete plates under seismic loading

Abstract : A new stress resultant nonlinear dissipative constitutive model for reinforced concrete (RC) plates under cyclic solicitations is presented. This constitutive model, named DHRC for Dissipative Homogenised Reinforced Concrete, is expressed within the usual thin plate kinematics framework. It is built by a periodic homogenisation approach using the averaging method and it couples concrete damage and periodic debonding between steel rebar and surrounding concrete. The generality of the proposed method leads to a generic closed-form for the Helmholtz strain energy density function and the two dissipation pseudo-potentials that can be adapted to any material with an internal structure similar to the RC structural element one. A restricted number of geometric and material characteristics are needed from which the whole set of model parameters are identified through an automatic numeric procedure performed on a Representative Volume Elements (RVEs) of the RC plate. Finally, comparisons of finite element simulations with experimental results concerning the seismic behaviour of reinforced concrete wall made structures are proposed and discussed.