NUMERICAL ANALYSIS BY FINITE ELEMENTS METHOD

FOR COMPRESSION BEHAVIOR OF HOLLOW

CONCRETE BLOCKS

DANIELA LENIS LOPERA1

1 Master student of Engineering, Universidad Eafit-Colombia. e-mail: dalenis.lopera@gmail.com

Advisor : John Mario García . Associate Professor, Universidad de Medellín-Colombia. e-mail: jmgarcia@udem.edu.co
 CONTENT

1. MODEL ELEMENT TYPES

2. FAILURE CRITERIA OF HOLLOW CONCRETE BLOCKS
3. PHYSICAL MODEL
4. EXPERIMENTAL TEST
5. ANSYS MODEL
6. CONCLUSIONS
7. FUTURE WORK
 1. MODEL ELEMENT TYPE

The element used to develop this model was Solid 65

Solid65: Used to model the concrete with or without

reinforcing bars.
•Eight nodes
•Three degrees of freedom
•Nonlinear properties
 1. MODEL ELEMENT TYPE

The element type reproduces cracking, crushing, plastic

deformation, and creep.

The Solid65 requires linear isotropic and multilinear isotropic

material properties. Element type uses the Von Mises failure
criterion along with the Willam and Warnke (1974) model to
define the failure of the concrete
 2. FAILURE CRITERIA

ANSYS is capable to predict failure for concrete materials.

Both Cracking and crushing failure modes are accounted for.
Tensile and compressive strengths are needed to define a
failure surface for the concrete.
Consequently, a criterion for failure of the concrete due to a
multiaxial stress state was calculated by William and Warnke’s
(1975) constitutive model for multiaxial stresses
 3. PHYSICAL MODEL

Geometry Hollow
Structural performance is Concrete Blocks
directly related to raw
materials properties.

Geometry Hollow
Concrete Blocks
Hollow Concrete Blocks with platens
 3. PHYSICAL MODEL

Compressive strength of masonry

is one of the most important
parameters for the structural
design. Its value depends primarily
on the strength of the unit
 4. EXPERIMENTAL TEST

The uniaxial compression behavior was experimentally

evaluated for commercial strength (10MPa) and high strength
(30MPa). Ninety samples were tested to obtain stress-strain
curves
The failure of the compression block is characterized by a
diagonal crack.

Diagonal crack failure, typical block of low Explosive failure typical

and medium strength. high-strength blocks.
 4. EXPERIMENTAL TEST

a) b)

Normalized stress-strain curves. a)f’b=10MPa, b)f’b=30MPa

a) b)

Normalized stress-strain curves vs Proposed Model. a)f’b=10MPa, b)f’b=30MPa

 5. ANSYS MODEL

The development of
constitutive models that
describe the behavior of
materials and the nonlinear
solution of the physical
problem, are inputs that allow
to obtain numerical results
quite similar with respect to
laboratory tests.
 5. ANSYS MODEL

Finite element model, is capable of simulating the response

to failure of a hollow concrete block due to uniaxial
compressions
Good correlation was found between numerical predictions
and experimental results.
 6. CONCLUSIONS

• The experimental values showed that the best correlation

between the elasticity modulus of the masonry unit and its
compressive resistance is a curve, contrary to the proposed
linear correlation exhibited in most of the masonry codes.

• The development of the constitutive models that describe the

behavior of the materials and the nonlinear physic work are
inputs that allowed achieve numeric results quite
approximate to the labs results.
• Therefore it is possible to develop a nonlinear finite elements
model to predict the behavior and optimize the design of the
post-tensioned masonry beams without grouting, for that
ANSYS is a good computational tool.
 7. FUTURE WORK

Numerical simulation of post-tensioned masonry beam with

hollow concrete blocks subjected to bending loads
 THANK YOU

¿QUESTIONS?