Bearing Characteristics with Effect of Bond–Slip Behavior in Massive Ring-Type Reinforced Concrete Structures

The bond–slip behavior of the steel–concrete interface is critical in reinforced concrete (RC) structures since the bond action is the mechanism that ensures the two materials work in co-operation. However, there is little research considering the bond–slip behavior in massive ring-type reinforced concrete (MRRC) structure bearing analyses due to the complexity of modeling the interfacial behavior. Hence, the influence of the bond–slip behavior on the bearing characteristics of MRRC structures remains unclear. Steel-lined reinforced concrete penstock is such an MRRC structure, composed of steel liner and reinforced concrete and commonly used in diversion pipelines. This paper aims to explore the bearing characteristics considering the bond–slip behavior in the composite penstock by using a promising numerical method, the cohesive zone model. Three interface models were proposed to represent the different interaction conditions at the steel–concrete interface. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis was performed to study the impact of the bond strength on the bond performance and structural behavior. The simulation results showed that the prediction results (steel stress and crack process) considering the bond–slip behavior were in good agreement with the experimental results. The steel stresses near the cracks were smaller and more uniform after considering the bond–slip behavior, since the stresses were no longer concentrated on the crack but distributed in an area near the crack. However, the steel stress differences in these models were within 10%, which means that the bond performance had a limited effect on the structural safety design. The crack widths were greatly influenced by the bond conditions, and the maximum crack width (0.461 mm) in poor conditions was beyond the limiting value (0.3 mm). Consequently, bond–slip behavior must be paid more attention in durability design.

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