Surrogate models for the damage responses of a reinforced concrete beam under explosive charges utilizing coupled finite element-stochastic methods

Numerical evaluation of experimental test in which reinforced concrete beam is subjected to TNT explosions is the subject of the paper. Prediction of damage responses is being conducted by utilizing both numerical analyses and stochastic experimental methods where ABAQUS and LS-DYNA are being used. Material parameters of concrete and reinforcement, together with the mass of the TNT charge are considered in sensitivity study which is further used for metamodel creation. The Box-Behnken experimental method is used to construct both the samples and the surrogate models for the prediction process by employing the least-squares method and MATLAB codes. The results demonstrate the high capability of the coupled finite element-stochastic methods to predict damages of the reinforced concrete beam. Results of the numerical simulations were verified by reference cases. Introduced coupled methods can be, therefore, considered a tool for not only structural response prediction but optimization as well.