Defining shear retention for a concrete smeared cracking model

As concrete cracks, its shear stiffness is diminished. You can define this effect by specifying the reduction in the shear modulus as a function of the opening strain across the crack. You can also specify a reduced shear modulus for closed cracks. See Cracked shear retention, for more information.

Context:

If you do not define shear retention for a concrete smeared cracking model, Abaqus/Standard automatically assumes that the shear response is unaffected by cracking (full shear retention). This assumption is often reasonable: in many cases, the overall response is not strongly dependent on the amount of shear retention.

  1. Create a material model as described in Specifying a concrete smeared cracking model.”

  2. From the Suboptions menu, select Shear Retention.

    A Suboption Editor appears.

  3. Toggle on Use temperature-dependent data to define data that depend on temperature.

    A column labeled Temp appears in the Data table.

  4. Click the arrows to the right of the Number of field variables field to increase or decrease the number of field variables on which the data depend.

  5. Enter the following data in the Data table:

    Rho_close

    The multiplying factor, ϱclose, that defines the modulus for shearing of closed cracks as a fraction of the elastic shear modulus of the uncracked concrete. The default value is 1.0.

    Eps_max

    The maximum direct strain across the crack, εmax. The default value is a very large number (full shear retention).

    Temp

    Temperature.

    Field n

    Predefined field variables.

    You may need to expand the dialog box to see all the columns in the Data table. For detailed information on how to enter data, see Entering tabular data.

  6. Click OK to return to the Edit Material dialog box.