Plastic hinge region in simply supported RC deep beams

The plastic deformation of the member plays an outstanding role on predicting the nonlinear response of structures. One of the most important reinforced concrete members in structures is reinforced concrete deep beam. In deep beams, the ratio of the height to the span is larger than that of slender beams. In this paper, the plastic hinge region of the simply supported reinforced concrete deep beams under concentrated and distributed loading are studied .For this purpose the rebar yielding zone and concrete crushing zone are investigated via commercial software ABAQUS. The results show that in simply supported deep beams by increasing the height of the beam, the length of the rebar yielding zone and concrete crushing zone along the length of the beam is almost constant and the length of concrete crushing zone increases along the compression struts. Also results indicate that plastic hinge length increases as the loading type is changed from the centrally concentrated load to distributed load.

Keywords:

Plastic Hinge , RC Deep Beam , Nonlinear strain , Reinforced concrete , Finite Element Analysis