Analysis of reinforced concrete plates subjected to impact employing the truss-like discrete element method.

ABSTRACT The prediction of the response of reinforced concrete structures subjected to projectiles impact still presents open questions. These include the rate dependence of material properties, the interaction between concrete and steel reinforcement and the simulation of fracture and fragmentation. Because the appearance of discontinuities in the target structure is difficult to account using a continuum approach, the application of discrete models was developed as an appealing alternative. A version of the discrete model in which nodal masses are linked by an array of uniaxial elements, herein called discrete element method, is used in this study. This method was implemented in the system Abaqus to take advantage of its numerical and post-processing capabilities. A reinforced concrete rectangular plate subjected to impact of a projectile is examined in detail. Comparisons between experimental and numerical results are shown with the aim of validating the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]