Tension stiffening model with increasing damage for reinforced concrete

A model for the analysis of plain and reinforced concrete structures is developed in the present work. In the plain concrete the localisation of the microcracking within a small band is formulated in terms of constant fracture energy. In the reinforced concrete the model considers the cracking localisation in the element, according to the expressions of Model Code 1990. The objective of this model is to approximate the tension stiffening effect observed in the reinforced concrete elements submitted to tensile stresses. The reinforcing steel is analysed with an element overlapped to the concrete element, having equivalent nodal displacements. Numerical examples are presented and compared with experimental and other numerical results.