Analysis of Three Dimensional Horizontal Reinforced Concrete Curved Beam Using Ansys

Reinforced concrete horizontally curved beams are extensively used in many fields, such as in the construction of modern highway intersections, elevated freeways, the rounded corners of buildings, circular balconies,....etc. In some of these cases, large depths are needed for curved beams in order to resist high loads or to fulfill some aesthetic purposes. The analytical analysis of such members is very complex due to the fact that those members are subjected to combined action of bending, shear and torsion. Furthermore, non homogeneous nature of the materials involved contributes to the complexity of the problem. Therefore, it becomes necessary to employ numerical analysis procedures, such as the finite element method, to satisfy the safety and the economy requirements.A horizontally curved beam, loaded transversely to its plane, is subjected to torsion in addition to bending and shear. Furthermore, in deep beam the plane section does not remain plane after bending because of high stresses and warping occurs. Therefore, special features of analysis and design for horizontally curved deep beams is necessary to include the effect of above mentioned factors. Several methods of collapse analysis (Khalifa 1972, Jordaan et al. 1974, Badawy et al. 1977, Hsu et al. 1978, and Abul Mansur and Rangan 1981. ) were proposed for analysis of specific cases of reinforced concrete curved beams. However, till yet studies concerning reinforced concrete horizontally curved deep beams are rare. At present, with the application of digital computers beside the development of numerical methods, the mathematical difficulties associated with curved deep beam have been largely overcome. One of the most effective numerical methods utilized for analyzing reinforced concrete members is the finite element method. Using this method, many aspects of the phenomenological behaviour of reinforced concrete structures can be modelled rationally. These aspects include the tension-stiffening, non-linear multiaxial material properties, modelling of cracking and crushing, and many other properties related to the behaviour of reinforced concrete members under stresses. An important utilization of the finite element method is the modelling of the degradation of concrete compressive strength in the presence of transverse tensile straining as happens in members subjected dominantly to torsion or shear stresses. Therefore, the present study adopted a three dimensional non-linear finite element model to investigate the behaviour and the load carrying capacity of reinforced concrete horizontally curved deep beams.