Mixed Formulation Beam Finite Element: Modeling of Shear Critical Steel and Reinforced Concrete Members

The development of reliable analytical models is essential for the advance of performance-based earthquake engineering in the design of new structures and in the seismic condition assessment of existing structures. This book describes the formulation of a beam finite element model for the analysis of shear critical steel and reinforced concrete (RC) structural members under monotonic and cyclic loading conditions. The element is based on a mixed formulation with three independent fields and exhibits numerical stability and robustness under cyclic loading conditions. The validity of the proposed beam element is confirmed by correlation studies of its nonlinear response with experimental results from steel shear links, slender RC beams and columns, and RC shear walls of moderate to low span to depth. The model proves capable of representing very accurately the global response, the failure mode, and several local response measures of each specimen. The efficiency of the element formulation makes it suitable for the seismic response analysis of large structural systems.