The role of softening in the numerical analysis of RC framed structures

Reinforced Concrete beams with tension and compression softening material constitutive laws are studied. Energy-based and non-local regularisation techniques are presented and applied to a R.C. element. The element characteristics (sectional tangent stiffness matrix, element tangent stiffness matrix restoring forces) are directly derived from their symbolic expressions through numerical integration. In this way the same spatial grid allows us to obtain a non-local strain estimate and also to sample the contributions to the element stiffness matrix. Three examples show the spurious behaviors due to the strain localization and the stabilization effects given by the regularisation techniques, both in the case of tension and compression softening. The possibility to overestimate the ultimate load level when the non-local strain measure is applied to a non softening material is shown.<br />