A bi-dissipative damage model for concrete

This work deals with an improvement of an anisotropic damage model in order to analyze reinforced concrete structures submitted to reversal loading. The original constitutive model is based on the fundamental hypothesis of energy equivalence between real and continuous media following the concepts of the Continuum Damage Mechanics. The concrete is assumed as an initial elastic isotropic medium presenting anisotropy, permanent strains and bimodularity induced by damage evolution. In order to take into account the bimodularity, two damage tensors governing the rigidity in tension or compression regimes are introduced. However, the original model is not capable to simulate the influence of the previous damage processes in compression regimes. In order to avoid this problem, some conditions are introduced to simulate the damage unilateral effect. It has noted that the damage model is agreement with to micromechanical theory conditions when dealing to unilateral effect in concrete material. Finally, the proposed model is applied in the analyses of reinforced concrete framed structures submitted to reversal loading. These numerical applications show the good performance of the model and its potentialities to simulate practical problems in structural engineering.