Enhanced beams and plates models incorporating the steel-concrete interface behavior for large-scale reinforced concrete structural applications

Considering the interaction between concrete and steel reinforcement in numerical simulations of reinforced concrete structures is crucial for accurately capturing the concrete cracking process. This is particularly interesting when studying structures fulfilling functions that go beyond their simple mechanical resistance, such as waterproofing functions. While three-dimensional (3D) volumetric finite element modeling offers detailed insights into structural behavior, its computational intensity becomes prohibitive for large-scale structures. In such contexts, adopting beam and plate elements formulations proves computationally more efficient, due to their reduced number of degrees of freedom. This paper presents a kinematic enhancement technique designed to integrate steel-concrete interface behavior into beam and plate finite element formulations. The approach combines classical beam or plate elements representing concrete behavior, conventional beam or truss elements modeling steel reinforcement, and the incorporation of bond stresses at the interface. The paper provides comprehensive explanations of this enhancement technique along with a curated selection of numerical validation and application examples. These examples are supplemented by a comparison with experimental data, illustrating the efficiency of the proposed enhancement approach.