Benchmarking of concrete cracking constitutive laws: MECA project

In 1999 EDF, seeking to have available a 3D constitutive model to describe the cracking of concrete to study the performance of its prestressed pressure containment vessels, initiated a series of calculations based on several cases. For this purpose a benchmark activity was launched with a pool of 13 academic and industrial teams, with the goal of performing nonlinear 3D analysis using different type of material laws for concrete. This paper is the first publication of a set of results obtained by the members of the project, and the aim of this presentation is to describe the project and provide results accompanied by some comments and facts for two of the tested structures. The ongoing project will end in 2003 with further analyses on the last specimen not presented here.