Simulation of Air Blast on RC Beam Reinforced with Cloth Concrete Cover in Abaqus

In this tutorial, the simulation of an air blast load on reinforced concrete (RC) beam with a cloth concrete cover has been carried out in Abaqus. The normal concrete core is modeled as a three-dimensional solid part, the cloth concrete cover is modeled as a three-dimensional solid part, and the steel bars and strips are modeled as wire parts. Cloth concrete, also known as concrete cloth, is a flexible cement-impregnated fabric that hardens when hydrated to form a durable, thin, waterproof, and fire-resistant concrete layer. It consists of a concrete blend with synthetic fibers and a PVC backing, making it a lightweight but effective reinforcement material. In this simulation, both the RC core and the cloth concrete cover are modeled using the Concrete Damaged Plasticity (CDP) model, which is a plasticity-based continuum damage model accounting for tensile cracking and compressive crushing. Compression and tension data, along with damage data, are introduced into Abaqus, and the strain damage option is used to capture the fully damaged behavior of both concrete parts. The steel reinforcement is modeled with an elastic-plastic material definition. A dynamic explicit step is selected for the analysis, with mass scaling applied to reduce computation time. The contact between the concrete core and the cloth concrete cover is assumed to be ideal, and the reinforcements are embedded inside the core. The CONWEP method is used to apply the blast load, defined by the mass and location of TNT in the interaction module. Appropriate boundary conditions and meshing are assigned to all parts to ensure accuracy. After running the simulation, results such as stress, strain, damage, failure, compression damage, and tension damage are available for evaluation.