Study On Discrete Element Method And Its Application In Structural Engineering

Now numerical analysis method has been one of the most important- tools in solving problems in scientific research field. There are certain difficulties in studying the failure process of frangible materials such as concrete, rock, etc which are caused by dynamic loads such as collision, earthquake, exploding, etc by those current exited numerical methods like finite element method etc. So in order to solve such a problem we should introduce certain new numerical analysis method.Discrete element method is one of numerical computation method analyzing mechanics of rock originally, now it has be an effective approach for simulating damage process of structures or components.In this paper, the state of history and present for discrete element method are reviewed and summarized. Extended element models are presented by extending on Motohiko Hakuno and Noriyuki Utagawa existing models. Steel bar element, nodal element and the non-linearity of concrete material are considered in extended models. Some basic concepts, failure criterion, formula and determination of analytical parameters such as spring modulus, coefficient of damping and time step of the extended model are presented.A software is programmed based the extended models,which can analyze the failure process of structures or components. For the maintainability and readability the codes are programmed in C++ which has object-oriented property. The computational efficiency is improved by applying different lists to different contact type technique in the program.The damage process of a concrete plate, the different failure configuration of reinforced concrete beam with different ratio of shear to span, and the collapse process of reinforced concrete frame due to explosion are simulated and analyzed. The results of simulating have shown that it is better on simulating the failure featuresof reinforced concrete structures and components by extended discrete element method.