Analysis of cracking in steel fibre-reinforced concrete (SFRC) structures in bending using probabilistic modelling

An improvement to the probabilistic discrete cracking model for fibre-reinforced concretes, originally developed by Rossi, is proposed in this paper.
This new model features the following:
- Crack formation and propagation in the concrete is taken into account by using special interface elements. These elements open once the normal tensile stress at their centre of gravity reaches the tensile strength of the element. The probabilistic aspect of the cracking process is taken into account by the fact that the tensile strength is randomly distributed throughout the mesh elements.
- Immediately after the formation of cracks, the fibre bridging effect is considered by a damage model approach. The probabilistic aspect consists of randomly distributing the post-cracking energy.
The improved numerical model is used to analyse the bending behaviour of three SFRC beams made from the same material. The numerical simulations are compared with experimental results in terms of the global behaviour of and cracking processes in the beams.