A spring model for simulating the cracking process in RC members subjected to tensile actions

Predicting the development of cracking processes in structural elements made of reinforced concrete (RC) or other cementitious composites is still a challenging task. Although well-established experimental procedures are widely adopted with the aim to gain empirical knowledge of the aforementioned processes, no similar consensus has been reached about mechanical modeling. Actually, the simulation approaches available in the literature are based either on computationally demanding 3D finite element models or on simplified 1D solutions obtained through alternative numerical strategies, such as finite difference schemes. The present paper proposes a simplified FEM model based on 1D spring elements, which aims at obtaining a reasonable balance between simulation accuracy and computational effort. The incremental-iterative scheme driving the nonlinear solution procedure is described in detail and some comparisons with experimental results on RC tensile members are proposed with the aim of validating the proposed model. Moreover, the promising results obtained in this paper inspire the future developments of the research towards the numerical simulation of the cracking behavior of other inorganic-matrix composites, like textile reinforced mortars (TRM), subjected to tensile actions.