The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

A fiber beam-column element for seismic response analysis of reinforced concrete structures

Taucer, Fabio F.; Spacone, Enrico; Filippou, Filip C.

UCB/EERC-91/17, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 1991-12, 142 pages (555.1/T29/1991)

This study proposes a reliable and computationally efficient beam-column finite element model for the analysis of reinforced concrete members under cyclic loading conditions that induce biaxial bending and axial force. The element is discretized into longitudinal steel and concrete fibers such that the section force-deformation relation is derived by integration of the stress-strain relation of the fibers. The proposed beam-column element is based on the assumption that deformations are small and that plane sections remain plane during the loading history. A special flexibility based state determination algorithm is proposed for the computation of the stiffness matrix and resisting forces of the beam-column element. The proposed nonlinear algorithm for the element state determination is general and can be used with any nonlinear section force-deformation relation. A new scheme for the application of element loads in flexibility based beam finite elements is also presented in the report. The response sensitivity to the number of control sections in the element and the effect of the selected tolerance on the accuracy of results is discussed in a few parameter studies.

Available online: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/documents/EERC/EERC-91-17.pdf (8 MB)