The effect of assembling location on the performance of precast concrete beam under impact load

Abstract

With incorporation of assembling joints, precast concrete beams could behave very differently in resisting both static and dynamic loads in comparison to conventional reinforced concrete beams. With no research available on the dynamic behavior of precast concrete beams under impact load, a combined experimental and numerical study is conducted to investigate the dynamic response of precast concrete beams under impact load. The results were also compared with reinforced concrete beams. Four groups of concrete beams were tested with all beams designed with the same reinforcement, but different assembling locations were considered for precast concrete beams. The effects of the assembling location in resisting drop weight impact of precast concrete beams were analyzed. The influence of impact mass and impact velocity on the impact resistance of precast concrete beams were also investigated. The results revealed that the further the assembling location is away from the impact location, the closer the mechanical performance of the precast concrete beam is to that of the reinforced concrete beam. When the assembling location and the impact location coincided, the assembling region suffered from severe local damages. With increased impact velocity and impact energy, the damage mode of the precast concrete beams may change gradually from bending failure to bending-shear failure and eventually to local failure. In addition, the bonding around the assembling interface was found to be effective to resist drop weight impact load regardless of the magnitude of the impact velocity and energy.

Review on impact response of reinforced concrete beams: Contemporary understanding and unsolved problems

“…On the other hand, the direct method to measure impact force has been used in most impact tests (Fujikake et al, 2009; Kishi et al, 2002; Pham et al, 2018; Tachibana et al, 2010; Yan et al, 2018; Zhao et al, 2017). The impact force is recorded by load cells, which can be either strain gauge type (Dey et al, 2014; Isaac et al, 2017; Yoo and Banthia, 2017) or piezoelectric type (Ulzurrun and Zanuy, 2017; Wang et al, 2019).…”

“…The impact force is recorded by load cells, which can be either strain gauge type (Dey et al, 2014; Isaac et al, 2017; Yoo and Banthia, 2017) or piezoelectric type (Ulzurrun and Zanuy, 2017; Wang et al, 2019). The load cell can be placed between the drop-weight and the tested specimen (Pham and Hao, 2016; Pham et al, 2018; Wu et al, 2016) or embedded at the rear of an impact head (Fujikake et al, 2009; Lee et al, 2018; Yan et al, 2018; Zhou et al, 2019) as shown in Figure 2. An investigation on the effects of load cell location and mass distribution of drop-weight on impact force has been reported in (Li et al, 2019b).…”

“…In addition, the geometry of the impactor head also plays an important role and may considerably affect the impact response of RC beams. In the previous impact tests, the impactor heads had various geometries including flat (Anil et al, 2016; Chen and May, 2009; Pham et al, 2018; Saatci and Vecchio, 2009; Yan et al, 2018; Yilmaz et al, 2014), wedge (Zhan et al, 2015), hemispherical (Adhikary et al, 2015; Chen and May, 2009; Fujikake et al, 2009; Zhao et al, 2017) and curved surface with different curvature radius (Kishi and Mikami, 2012; Kishi et al, 2002; Tachibana et al, 2010) as shown in Figure 5. The effects of various geometries of an impactor head on the impact behavior of RC beams have been investigated in the previous study (Li et al, 2019a).…”

“…Beside the drop-weight directly impacting on the beams (Adhikary et al, 2015; Fujikake et al, 2009; Kishi and Mikami, 2012; Kishi et al, 2002; Tachibana et al, 2010; Yan et al, 2018), steel plates (Saatci and Vecchio, 2009; Zhao et al, 2017), rubber pads (Zhan et al, 2015), a combination of steel plate and rubber pad (Anil et al, 2016; Yilmaz et al, 2014) or plywood pads (Chen and May, 2009) have been used as interlayers between drop-weight and RC beams as shown in Figure 6. By placing the rubber pads (Anil et al, 2016; Yilmaz et al, 2014; Zhan et al, 2015), possible oscillations and local failure can be mitigated.…”

State-of-the-Art Review on Responses of RC Structures Subjected to Lateral Impact Loads

“…21 Failure behavior of an RC column under mid-span impact load [124] areas may also be subjected to impact loads arising from the falling objects and rocks. Hence, many researchers have attempted in the literature investigating the impact forces, structural responses, and failure behaviors of RC beams analytically [2,[159][160][161][162][163][164], numerically [1,[165][166][167][168][169][170][171][172][173][174][175][176], and experimentally [18,20,166,[177][178][179][180][181][182][183][184][185][186][187] under low-rate [1,2,171,175,185,187] and relatively high rate [188][189][190][191] impact loads by focusing on the influence of the structural...…”