Mohammad Zineddin, Graduate Student

Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering

The Pennsylvania State University

ABSTRACT

Reinforced concrete structures are often subjected to extreme dynamic loading conditions due to direct impact. Typical examples include transportation structures subjected to vehicle crash impact, marine and offshore structures exposed to ice impact, protective structures subjected to projectile or aircraft impact and structures sustaining shock and impact loads during explosions or earthquakes.

Over the last two decades, large-scale computational capabilities have been developed in several areas of structural dynamics. Few capabilities were developed for structural problems involving impact effects. Researchers have studied the behavior of reinforced concrete structures under extreme transient dynamic loading. This has led to the development of impact behavior models, and material models, and material models for reinforced concrete under dynamic loading.

This presentation is based on a study of the finite element simulations of reinforced concrete slabs subjected to impact loading. This study focused primarily on the effects of reinforcement variation, impactor tip hardened, and impact velocity on the structural response and behavior. Three groups of tests with twelve different cases were modeled with different reinforcement, impact hardness, and loading velocities. The observed numerical behavior was used to better understand the structural response of the reinforced concrete slabs and to establish a background for the planned experimental study.