One of the future needs of the engineering community is a general computational platform for the seismic analysis of structures, structural components, and the interaction between structures and surrounding soil. However, before a large effort is expended, a thorough evaluation of current capabilities is required to establish the state of the art and to determine the direction that should be taken with regard to design needs and analytical approaches. A specific area of interest is the analysis of reinforced concrete components, including cracking and crushing of concrete and yield of steel. The focus of the work of this report was to perform an evaluation of current capabilities in this area by applying several existing software packages to a benchmark problem. Data from a set of recent experimental tests involving the flexural and shear performance of a reinforced concrete column were obtained. Cyclic and monotonic load cases were performed for several types of analysis using a degrading plastic hinge model, a fiber beam model, and a detailed three-dimensional finite element model. Details of the data preparation and analysis results are presented. Reasonable results were obtained from all models to varying degrees, but the
three-dimensional finite element model was unable to provide meaningful solutions in the inelastic range due to numerical difficulties. Therefore, either the use of the degrading hinge model or the fiber beam model is recommended for practical structural analysis.
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