COMMUNICATIONS I N APPLIED NUMERICAL METHODS, Vol.

6, 137-144 (1990)

SUBSTRUCTURE METHOD FOR STRESS ANALYSIS OF

MASS CONCRETE STRUCTURES

ZHU BOFANG
Institute of Wafer Conservancy & Hydroelecrric Power Research, PO Box 366, Beijing, China

SUMMARY
In the finite-element stress analysis of a mass concrete structure, owing to the effect of age of the concrete,
it is necessary to compute a stiffness matrix and its inverse for every time increment. The computation
is quite lengthy. In this paper a generalized substructure method is offered. It is assumed that the
structure, consisting of rn zones of different materials, is divided into rn substructures, one for each zone.
As every substructure is a homogeneous solid, the compu;ation relevant to the substructure is required
at the beginning only, and can be utilized repeatedly thereafter. Thus the computation is simplified
remarkably.

1. INTRODUCTION
Mass concrete structures are often heterogeneous. The heterogeneity may lie in the structures
themselves, e.g. in dams built of concrete of different grades. Some structures, though
homogeneous in themselves, should be treated as heterogeneous ones if their foundations with
different material properties are taken into consideration. At present the finite-element method
(FEM) is used to analyse the elasto-creeping stresses, especially the thermal stresses in mass
concrete structures, such as concrete dams. The whole time is divided into a series of time
intervals: A t , , A t z , At3, ..., A t , . For each time interval an equilibrium equation needs to be
established and solved. Because Young’s modulus and the unit creep strain of concrete are
dependent on the age of the concrete, the stiffness matrix is also dependent on it. It is really
an enormous work t o calculate a stiffness matrix and its inverse for each time interval.
A generalized substructure method is suggested in this paper to raise the computation speed.
Provided that a structure can be divided into a series of domains from 1 to rn with different
materials, respectively, each domain is taken as a substructure. For each substructure with the
same material, the relevant matrices need to be calculated only once and can be reused for all
the following time intervals. Therefore the amount of computation work is reduced a great
deal.

2. EQUILIBRIUM EQUATION FOR EACH TIME INTERVAL

The equilibrium equation for each time interval At,, is given in the following.

2. I . Strain under unidirectional stress

Assuming that the concrete is subjected to a constant unit unidirectional stress a ( t ) = 1 from

0748-8025/90/020137-07$05 .OO Received 8 February I989

0 1990 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Revised I0 October I989
138 ZHU BOFANG

time t = 7, the strain at time t is given by creep compliance J ( t , 7) as follows:

where E(7) is the instantaneous Young modulus at time 7 and C ( t , 7 ) is the unit creep of
concrete.
E(7) is expressed by '

where 7 is the age of the concrete, EOis the final instantaneous Young modulus as 7 + co, and
a and b are constants determined by experiments.
The unit creep of concrete, C(t,7 ) , may be expressed as follows:

for the reversible creep

&(7) = fJ + g;r - PJ (4)
and for the irreversible creep
+;(7) = fJ7--YJr (5)
where fJ, g;, r, and pj are all constants determined by experiments. Generally, we may take
m = 2 or 3 in equation (3).
If the concrete is subjected to variable unidirectional stress 4 7 ) from time t = to, the strain
at time t is given by

+
E ( t ) = AaoJ(t, t o ) 5 In
aa
J ( t , 7 ) - d7
a7 (6)

where Aao is the stress increment at I = to. From equations (1) and (6), the strain c ( t ) may be
divided into two parts as follows:
~ ( t=)r e @ +
) tf(t) (7)
where ee( t ) is the instantaneous elastic strain given by

and c C ( t )is the strain due to creep, given by

) AuoC(t, t o ) +
eC(t= if to
C(t,7 ) -
aa d7
a7 (9)

By dividing the whole time into a series of intervals: A l l , A t z , ...A f , , ,..., from the mean value
theorem and equation (a), the increment of instantaneous elastic strain of the nth time interval
is given as follows:

where E(tn-0.5)is the instantaneous Young modulus at I = t,, - OeSAt,,.

Assuming that a 4 d . r is constant in each time interval but different in different time intervals,
 SUBSTRUCTURE METHOD FOR STRESS ANALYSIS 139

from equation (9) the increment of strain due to creep in the nth time interval is given by the
following formula: '
AEn=€C(tn)-€c(tn-l)=rln+qn AUn (1 1)
where

and wjn can be computed by the following recurrence formula:

wjn = wj,n- le-r~Atn-l+ Aun- I4(tn- 1 . s)e - 0 . 5 r ~A''t- I
(14)
wjl = AUo4jjto)

2.2. Strain due to creep under complex stress state

Let

The increment of strain due t o creep under complex stress state may be computed as follows:
A&' = l n + qnQ AUn (16)
where

Q is given in the Appendix and q n is given in equation (13).

2.3. Equilibrium equation

The equilibrium equation of the finite-element method for each time interval is as follows:
Kn AUn = AP," + AP', + AP', = APn (20)
in which Kn is the stiffness matrix, AUn is the incremental nodal displacement vector, AP," is
the applied load vector, and AP', and APf, are incremental pseudo-load vectors due to creep
deformation and temperature variations, respectively.
After the displacement increments AUn are found by solving equation (20), the stress
increments can be calculated by using the following equation:
Aun = Dn(B AUn - l n - A&,) (21)
where B is the strain geometrical matrix in the FEM. The expression of D, takes the form
140 ZHU BOFANG

where Q - ' denotes the inverse matrix of Q (see Appendix), and Kn, A P f and Apf, can be
calculated as follows:

AP,' =
s BTD,qn d V (24)

q n is given by equation (17), E* = E ( T ~I +

- A742) and qn = C ( t n t,l
, -0.5).

3. SUBSTRUCTURE METHOD FOR ELASTO-CREEPING STRESS ANALYSIS

Because K n is dependent on 7, it is necessary to calculate K n and its inverse for each time
interval. It is really an enormous task. Provided that the structure consists of rn domains with
different materials, respectively, each domain is taken as a substructure. From equations (22)
and (23), let

En may be moved out of the integral symbol since it is a constant in each substructure with the
same material, and

in which

h=
s BTQ-'B d V
It should be mentioned here that matrix h depends only on the geometric dimension but not
(28)

on the material properties, and therefore it needs to be evaluated only at the beginning and can
be used later without any change.
The nodes of the substructure concerned may be classified into two categories, one including
those inside it Gr on the free boundaries and the other including those on the common edges
of different substructures or on the constrained boundaries. The relation between the
incremental nodal forces A F n and the corresponding displacements A U n becomes

in which i denotes the interior and free boundaries of the substructure, and b denotes the
common edges between the substructures and the restrained boundaries, while n implies the nth
time interval Atn. The expansions of the above equations are:

The incremental loads APni applied at the internal nodes should be in equilibrium with the
corresponding force increments AFni. By substituting AP,; for AFnj in (30) and finding out the
 SUBSTRUCTURE METHOD FOR STRESS ANALYSIS 141

inverse matrix of X;i, the following equation is derived:

Substitution of (32) into (3 1) gives

in which

By assembling the stiffness matrix with respect to all the substructures, the global equilibrium
equation becomes
Knb AUnb = APnb - Rnb (36)
in which

in which C, implies the summation with respect to all the substructures, Knb is the condensed
global stiffness matrix, AUnb is the incremental displacements, APnb is the incremental loads
applied at the nodes on the common edges and restrained boundary and Rnb is the incremental
reacting forces due to the loads inside the substructures and on the non-restrained boundaries.
AUn; in (32) can be calculated by substituting for AU,b from equation (36), then An, can be
obtained from equation (21).
In order to reduce the memory storage for Knb, the nodes on common boundaries should be
numbered in sequence with the degrees of freedom on the restrained boundaries deleted. For
example, Figure 1 shows a two-lift concrete block on rock foundation. The structure is divided
into three substructures and each of them possesses 300 nodes.
On the restrained boundary ABCD the degrees of freedom can be deleted because of zero
displacements on it. Since the nodes on the common boundaries are numbered from 301 to 330,
AU,b corresponds only to 30 nodes with 60 degrees of freedom in the plane problem. Therefore
K n b is reduced to a (60,60)-matrix in contrast to the original (1800, 1800)-matrix K,. The time

Figure 1. Substructure method

142 ZHU BOFANG

period in the computation is taken as 50 time intervals. It is necessary to establish an

(l800,1800)-matrix K, and to evaluate its inverse matrix for each interval by using the
conventional method, while only a (60,60)-matrix needs to be treated by using the method
suggested in this paper. It is evident that the amount of computation required is thus reduced
a great deal.

4. NUMERICAL EXAMPLES
As the first example, let us consider the analysis of the thermal stresses due to hydration heat
of cement in a concrete block, 20 m in length and 1.5 m in height, lying on a rock foundation,
as shown in Figure2. The temperature field, Young's modulus and the stresses vary
continuously with time as the hydration heat develops and disperses in natural conditions.
Young's modulus of the rock foundation is 30,000 MPa and that of concrete is given by the
following formula,
E(7) = 36,000(1 - e-0'42r0.'4
)(MW 139)
The unit creep of concrete is
C ( t ,7 ) = 6 . 3 9 x x (1 + 9 . 2 0 ~ - ~ ' ~-~ e-0'30('-r)l
)(1
+ 14-44x x (1 + 1 . 7 0 ~ - ~ '1~-~e-0'0050('-r)]
)[ (l/MPa) (40)
The stress analysis must be preceded by heat conduction analysis to determine the temperature

-0.5 /- / ,1. 5 3 1
I 02 .? I

-1.01

Figure 2. Thermal stresses in different points of a concrete block on rock foundation due to heat of hydration of
cement: (1) stress at point 1; (2) stress at point 2; (3) stress at point 3
 SUBSTRUCTURE METHOD FOR STRESS ANALYSIS 143

I I 15m I

time (days )

Figure 3. Thermal stresses in a multi-lift concrete block on rock foundation

distribution within the structure. The equation of heat conduction is

where 8 is the adiabatic temperature rise of concrete due to heat of hydration of cement and
is given by
6 ( ~ ) = 2 5 r / ( 1 - 2 8 + 7 )("C) (42)
The temperature field is computed by the FEM with the same network as adopted for stress
analysis. The rock foundation is also modelled by finite elements. The structure is divided into
two substructures, one for the concrete block and the other for the rock foundation. The
computed horizontal stresses ux at points 1 and 2 are shown in Figure 2. It is clear that the
stresses at points 1 and 2 are quite different.
For the second example, let us consider the computing of the thermal stresses due to
hydration heat in a multi-lift concrete block, 30 m in length, lying on a rock foundation, as
shown in Figure 3. Each lift was poured every six days, with 3.0 m-thick upper lifts and 1.5 m-
thick lower lifts. Young's modulus, unit creep and adiabatic temperature rise are the same as
for the first example. The structure is divided into five substructures, one for the foundation
and four for the four concrete lifts. The horizontal stresses at points 1, 2, 3 and 4 are shown
in Figure 3.
Experience shows that, owing t o the application of the substructure method proposed in this
paper, the computing speed increases by more than 2000 per cent.

5 . CONCLUSIONS
The substructure method proposed in this paper greatly simplifies the elasto-creeping stress
analysis of concrete structures and greatly accelerates the computing speed.
144 ZHU BOFANG

APPENDIX: FORMULAE FOR Q - ’ AND A&:

1. Plane stress problem

2. Plane strain problem

I
r
1 - CL
1-P
0

3. Spatial problem

l1 P
1-p
-
CL
1-p
~

c1
0 0 0

1 - 0 0 0
1-p

1 0 0 0

(symmetrical)

A & ; = [ a AT,, a AT,, a AT,, O,O, 01

where a is the coefficient of linear expansion, p is Poisson’s ratio and A T , is the increment of
temperature.

REFERENCES
1. Zhu Bofang, ‘Modulus of elasticity, unit creep and coefficient of stress relaxation of concrete’, Chin.
J. Hydraul. Eng., No. 9 (1985).
2 . Zhu Bofang, ‘An implicit method for the stress analysis of concrete structures considering the effect
of creep’, Chin. J. Hydraul. Eng., No. 2 , (1984).
3. Zhu Bofang, et al., Thermal Stresses and Temperature Control of Hydraulic Concrete Structures,
Publishing House of Water Resources and Electricity, 1976.