Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 47 (2011) 1280–1290

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Finite Elements in Analysis and Design

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An improved calibration of the concrete damage model

Natalia Markovich a, Eytan Kochavi a,b,n, Gabi Ben-Dor a
a
Protective Technologies Research & Development Center, Faculty of Engineering Sciences, Ben Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), Beer-Sheva, Israel
b
Nuclear Research Center Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The Concrete Damage Model that is implemented in the LS-Dyna code is capable of simulating the
Received 11 February 2011 behavior of plain concrete under complex static and dynamic loading conditions. However, the values
Accepted 19 May 2011 for the numerous parameters, which are required as an input, are left for the user to provide. In this
Available online 2 July 2011
study the Concrete Damage Model was calibrated for a wide range of strong concretes, using triaxial-
Keywords: compression-test data that were obtained from the literature. In contrast, the adjustment of the
Concrete parameters of the present model is provided as a function of the unconfined compressive strength of
Constitutive model the concrete. Although, not enough validation has been done either in higher pressures or in actual
Numerical simulation tests, it is evident that the presently calibrated model shows better agreement with published test
LS-Dyna
results than the model currently available in LS-Dyna.
Damage
& 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
High-strength concrete
High-performance concrete

1. Introduction response of RC structures to blast wave loads. These codes have a

Reinforced concrete (RC) is a widely used construction mate-
rial for protective structure applications. The global spread of
terror attacks has increasingly focused the attention of research-
ers all over the world on the potential of RC structures to mitigate
blast and penetration effects.
Concrete exists in a large range of unconfined compressive
strengths1 (20–120 MPa). Concrete is brittle, i.e., has a low tensile
strength, but is stronger in axial compression, and becomes
increasingly stronger and ductile, when subjected to multi-axial
compression. Failure in concrete is a gradual complex process.
While accumulating damage in the form of cracks, concrete is still
able to absorb considerable strain energy. Hence, concrete based
protective structures can deform and absorb large amounts of
energy before collapsing, and thus shield and protect personnel
and equipment. Efficient design of protective structures cannot
rely on typically conservative civil engineering calculations,
which are associated with large safety factors. The increasingly
common use of nonlinear numerical codes makes accurate com-
puting of the dynamic response of concrete structures possible.
More designers are using commercial nonlinear codes such as
LS-Dyna [1], Autodyn [2] and Dyrtan [3] to simulate the dynamic
n
Corresponding author at: Protective Technologies Research & Development
Center, Faculty of Engineering Sciences, Ben Gurion University of the Negev (BGU),
84105 Beer-Sheva, Israel.
E-mail addresses: kochaviy@bezeqint.net, eitank@bgu.ac.il (E. Kochavi).
1
The strength is defined as the maximum stress obtained during a uniaxial
compression test of standardized specimens.
long history of use with numerous types of materials. However,
concrete is a material that is difficult to model in these codes.
Although many material models are available in such codes, and
they are continuously being improved, not much focus has been
placed on reliably calibrating them to describe the behavior of
specific types of concrete. The occasional user of such a numerical
code finds himself quite often in a helpless situation when he/she
is required to select a model for concrete and then to provide the
large number of required parameter values. The user manuals for
these numerical codes are usually of little help and it is almost
impossible to find in the literature values for the required
parameters. Hence, appropriate values for these parameters are
a valuable asset to analysts. Unfortunately however, such para-
meters are not distributed or published due to proprietary or
security considerations.
Many attempts have been made over the past years to define a
material model that describes the behavior of plain concrete
(without any reinforcement) for various combinations of multi-
axial stresses. A good literature review, followed by experiments
and computations with Autodyn’s RHT concrete model, can be
found in [4]. Another review [5] was followed by an evaluation of
several numerical models, concluding that Autodyn’s RHT model
and LS-Dyna’s Concrete Damage Model were the most compre-
hensive models available. Moreover, after investigating their
actual performance in representing the concrete behavior under
various stress conditions, the authors of [5] found that the
Concrete Damage Model was capable of representing satisfacto-
rily the concrete behavior in a consistent manner for all the
examined stress conditions. At about the same time, independent

0168-874X/$ - see front matter & 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.finel.2011.05.008
 N. Markovich et al. / Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 47 (2011) 1280–1290
investigations were performed by some of the authors of the
present paper [6,7], in which numerical concrete models were
investigated and compared to the dynamic response of composite
concrete walls subjected to short-duration blast-like loads. These
investigations also reached the conclusion that the Concrete
Damage Model in LS-Dyna performed the best.
In LS-Dyna, several material models are available. One of the
most advanced is a model developed by Malvar et al. [8] who
tested and improved it during the years 1994–2000 [9–12]. The
current name of the model, ‘‘Concrete Damage Release 3’’, is often
referred to as ‘‘Karagozian & Case (K&C) Concrete Model’’ after the
company that employed the authors of [8–11]. In the full input
version of this model, the material model requires from the user
to specify 49 parameters. Also, this model provides a capability of
automatically generating the parameters, given only the uncon-
fined compressive strength of the concrete. This makes the use of
this model easily accessible to most users without the extensive
efforts needed to carry out laboratory material characterization
tests and corresponding calibrations.
When this version of the Concrete Damage Model became
available, it was decided by the authors of the present study to
validate it for a wide range of strong concretes. The validation
process revealed that it was necessary to improve the automatic
parameter generator of the model. Consequently, the main con-
tribution of the present study is a new calibration algorithm,
referred to as the BGU Model (for Ben-Gurion University). As will
be shown subsequently, the BGU Model resulted in better agree-
ment with the available data than the existing model. The present
study describes the calibration method and provides a compar-
ison between the BGU and the K&C calibrations to data that is
used to demonstrate the improvements. It should be noted that
the authors of the present study did not have the means to
perform laboratory tests on concrete specimens. However, this
was not necessary since some concrete test results are already
available in the open literature. In the present study, the calibra-
tion was performed using the data published by Attard and
Setunge [13]. Their model and related issues attributed to this
important publication will be referred to in the following as A&S
model or the A&S results. The main goal of the present study was
to provide an improved calibration for the stress–strain relation-
ship in the compressive stress state that is an important feature of
concrete. The calibration is detailed in the next section. The
calibration was performed using quasi-static triaxial compression
tests. Although the dynamic strength increase in concrete is an
often cited feature of concrete, which is important when dealing
with strain rate effects caused by short duration blast loads or
projectile penetration, strain rate effects are not treated in the
present study.
2. Stress–strain relationships in triaxial compression
Concrete is relatively weak in tension compared to its uncon-
fined compression strength and even stronger in multi-axial
compression, i.e., increase in strength with an increase in the
hydrostatic component of the stress state. Civil engineers use this
increasing strength concrete property in efficient design. The
most common test used to define the strength of concrete is the
uniaxial compression test; a standard notation for this important
strong concrete is fc0 . When large hydrostatic pressure is involved,
due to blast loading or the concrete in front of a penetrator, the
shear strength of the concrete increases significantly, and good
protective designs should take advantage of this effect. Triaxial
compression tests are used to define the concrete shear strength
increase with increase in hydrostatic compression. A good source
for uniaxial and triaxial stress test data for a wide range of strong
1281
Fig. 1. Comparison of A&S experimental results for a 120 MPa strong concrete
(squares) with A&S model prediction (solid line) for confinement stresses of 5, 10
and 15 MPa.
Courtesy of Attard and Setunge [13].
concretes is the study of Attard and Setunge [13]. As reported by
them, concrete samples (cylinders 100 mm in diameter and
200 mm high) were manufactured using concrete mixes com-
bined from three kinds of Australian aggregate and five different
kinds of cement that included a silica fume and a binder. The
combination of these mixes resulted in 11 types of high-strength
concrete (HSC), which were tested in uniaxial stress, 90 days after
casting. The different types of concrete ranged in their strengths
from 60 to 120 MPa. Also, at least 37 samples were tested in
triaxial stress, which was able to maintain a lateral (confining)
stress of up to 20 MPa. All the results are reported in [13] using
plots similar to Fig. 1.
In addition to the test results in the form of Fig. 1, Attard and
Setunge [13] provided empirical full stress–strain relationships
for uniaxial and triaxial stress loaded concrete specimens. These
empirical formulas are applicable for a wide range of strong
concretes between 10 and 130 MPa and for confining pressures
between 1 to 20 MPa, and reproduce their test results within 10%
accuracy. More importantly, they demonstrated that the specific
combination of cement mix and aggregate had no significant
effect on the shape of the stress–strain curve, i.e., once the same
strength was obtained using different mixes, the stress–strain
curve was almost identical. They also reported that their model
was capable of generating data that was successful in predicting
the results of tests that were performed by others on specimens of
lower strength concretes, e.g., down to 20 MPa.
Consequently, the results of [13] can be used to generate
estimates for the stress–strain relationship of any concrete with a
known unconfined compressive strength, independent of the
concrete mix or aggregate. For anyone who does not have the
experimental means for carrying out triaxial tests on a wide range
of strong concretes, A&S model [13] is a good tool for generating
approximate ‘‘test’’ data with an assumed 10% accuracy. This
generated ‘‘test’’ data have been used in the present study to
calibrate Malvar’s Concrete Model [8–11]. However, before pro-
ceeding to the calibration method, it is important to comment on
the expected accuracy of this calibration. Firstly, the assumption
that A&S tests describe within 10% any global concrete of known
strength is, at best, a tentative extrapolation, even though it was
1282 N. Markovich et al. / Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 47 (2011) 1280–1290

tested and proven predictive of other results. Therefore, it should

be clearly mentioned that the presented calibration is an option
that is a choice for any user who cannot perform laboratory tests
and calibrate a concrete model. Secondly, 10% accuracy may seem
for many researchers as a rough estimate. However, for engineers
accustomed to working with concrete, this may seem surprisingly
good agreement. Often in practice, uniaxial tests results of
concrete specimens, even from the same batch and age, can vary
in strength by more than 10%.

3. Compressive failure surfaces

To understand the calibration performed in the present study,

it is important to acquire a basic understanding of the Concrete
Damage Model developed and improved by Malvar et al. [8–11].
Hence, in the following, a brief review of the main features
responsible for the stress–strain relationship of concrete in
LS-Dyna is presented. More detailed descriptions can be found
in [8–12,14].
The Concrete Damage Model is a three-invariant model, using
three shear failure surfaces, which includes damage and strain-
rate effects. As often done in geo-material models, this concrete
model decouples the volumetric and deviatoric responses. The
volumetric behavior is governed by a compaction curve or an
equation of state (EOS), which describes the compressive beha-
vior of the material. In this context, the EOS provides the pressure,
p, as a function of the volumetric strain and the internal energy.
A tabulated compaction model (EOS) is used, which is linear in
the internal energy. The pressure is defined by
p ¼ CðeV Þ þ gTðeV ÞE ð1Þ

throughout the loading phase. The function CðeV Þ is provided as a

series of ðp, eV Þ pairs in the keyword input file. The EOS prescribes
a set of pressures, unloading bulk modules and volumetric strains.
The pressure as a function of the volumetric strain is a
piecewise curve and it includes the elastic part, which is assumed
linear. As demonstrated in Fig. 2, the unloading occurs along the
unloading bulk module until the tensile pressure cutoff is
reached, and when the stress is set to zero. Reloading always
follows the unloading path to the point where unloading began,
and continues on the loading path. In the compacted state, the
bulk unloading module depends on the maximum attained
volumetric strain.
Once the pressure, p, has been determined from the EOS, a
movable surface, or failure surface, limits the secondpinvariant of the
ffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
deviatoric stress tensor, J2 . This model uses Ds ¼ 3J2 , the stress
difference, which is easily calculated from the triaxial-stress test
pressure
Fig. 3. (a) Shear surfaces in the Concrete Damage Model, and (b) concrete
constitutive behavior.
Modified from [9].
data. As shown in Fig. 3a the formulation of this model is plasticity
based with three independent shear surfaces, which are functions of
the hydrostatic pressure. It should be reminded that in geo-
materials, the stress and the pressure are positive in compression.
Fig. 3b shows a typical stress–strain response of an unconfined
(uniaxial) compression specimen. It can be seen in the first part of
Fig. 3b that as the axial compression increases, the axial compressive
strain increases linearly until yield occurs (Pt. 1).
Fig. 3a shows the trajectory of uniaxial compressive loading on
the stress difference vs. pressure plane. Uniaxial loading forms in
this plane a line with a slope of 1:3. Yielding occurs when this
uniaxial trajectory line meets the yield surface. Then, the speci-
men continues to harden until the maximum strength is reached
(Pt. 2). The trajectory line is straight because the ratio of the

deviatoric stress to the hydrostatic component is constant in

uniaxial loading. Fig. 3b shows the loading curve in the axial
stress–strain plane. In this plane it can be observed that while
hardening the slope of the curve decreases as damage starts to
accumulate in the specimen. The determination of the shape of
this curve is described later. For the time being, it is important to
understand the evolution of the stress trajectories. To complete
the data necessary for obtaining the damage surfaces, triaxial-
volumetric strain compression tests are performed. At the first stage of a triaxial
Fig. 2. Pressure vs. volumetric strain curve for a tabulated compaction equation- compression test the lateral (confining) stress and the axial stress
of-state (EOS8 in LS-Dyna). are increased simultaneously until a certain confining stress
 N. Markovich et al. / Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 47 (2011) 1280–1290 1283

pressure is reached with no deviatoric stresses (a trajectory along maximum failure

the mean stress axis of Fig. 3b). Then, the axial compression is surface
increased while keeping the lateral stress constant (a diagonal 1
trajectory, again with slope 1:3 until the yield curve is reached).
Since the concrete becomes stronger as the confining pressure
increases (see Fig. 3b), the shear curves slope up with increase in
mean stress.
The material response is considered linear up to the yield

η
stress point, (Pt. 1). After yielding, a strain hardening plasticity
response occurs until the maximum strength, (Pt. 2), is achieved.
After reaching the maximum strength, softening occurs until the
residual strength is reached, (Pt. 3), all of which depend on the
amount of confining stress.
A total of eight parameters, ai, define the three initial failure 0
λm λ
surfaces, in the Concrete Damage Model:
yield failure surface residual failure surface
 Maximum failure surface: Fig. 4. Schematic evolution of the damage function.
p
Dsm ¼ a0 þ ð2Þ
a1 þ a2 p
use the basic concrete damage model, the user needs to supply 49
parameters while in most cases the only known property is the
 Residual failure surface: unconfined compressive strength of the concrete. Ideally these
p parameters should be determined from available laboratory data
Dsr ¼ ð3Þ
a1f þa2f p obtained from unconfined compression tests and several triaxial
compression tests that must be performed at different confining
 Yield failure surface: stresses. However, in the following section, a method for estimat-
ing all of the above parameters as a function of the user specified
p
Dsy ¼ a0y þ ð4Þ unconfined strength of the concrete is presented. For this purpose,
a1y þ a2y p
the empirical relations of Attard and Setunge [13] from test
data are used as representative of the compressive behavior of
Each of the above surfaces is based on the second invariant of concrete over a wide range of strong concretes.
the deviatoric stress:
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Ds ¼ 32ðS21 þS22 þS23 Þ ð5Þ 4. The damage function

Once the values of the three points are known from Fig. 3a, the
The change in the stress as a function of plastic strain arises
shape of the curve in Fig. 3b should be obtained. After the stress
from physical mechanisms such as internal cracking, and the
reaches the initial yield surface and before it reaches the max-
extent of this cracking is affected by the magnitude of the
imum failure surface, the current stress is calculated by means of
hydrostatic pressure when cracking occurs. This mechanism is
a linear interpolation between the two surfaces, i.e.,
commonly known as the ‘‘confinement’’ effect on concrete beha-
Ds ¼ ZðDsm Dsy Þ þ Dsy ð6Þ vior. To account for this phenomenon a ‘‘damage’’ function was
After reaching the maximum failure surface, the current failed defined by [8] and implemented in the Concrete Damage Model of
stress is similarly interpolated between the maximum and the LS-Dyna. The damage function is defined as
residual stress surfaces, i.e., Z ep
dep
l¼ when p Z0 ð8Þ
Ds ¼ ZðDsm Dsr Þ þ Dsr ð7Þ 0 rf ð1 þðp=rf ft ÞÞb1
where Z is a parameter, which indicates the relative amount of Z ep
damage and the current failure surface region, and is a function of dep
l¼ when p o0 ð9Þ
the effective plastic strain, l. As can be seen in Fig. 4 where the 0 rf ð1 þðp=rf ft ÞÞb2
evaluation of the damage function is shown schematically, Z ¼0 at
where the effective plastic strain increment is given by
l ¼0, and Z increases to 1 for l ¼ lm (the effective strain for which qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
the deviatoric second invariant is a maximum). Then Z decreases dep ¼ ð23depij depij Þ ð10Þ
back to 0 at some larger value of l. Whenever l r lm the state lies
between the yield and the maximum failure surfaces; for l Z lm and b1 and b2 are damage scaling parameters for the cases of
the state lies between the maximum failure and the residual uniaxial compression and tension, respectively. The parameters
surfaces. b1 and b2, in Eqs. (8) and (9), determine the rate at which the
Since the full details of the material model are well established damage occurs; rf is the dynamic increase factor that accounts for
and documented in references [8–12], only the above formulae strain rate effects. It is important to note that in more recent
are essential for explaining the calibration method that is pro- versions (2007) of LS-Dyna, e.g., Version 971 [1], the following
posed in the present study. enhanced form of the above equations has been introduced:
The data that define the compressive behavior of a specific dep
concrete, which the user needs to supply, are the eight values for dl ¼ for p Z 0 ð11Þ
½1 þ ðs=100Þðrf 1Þð1 þðp=rf ft ÞÞb1
the constants, ai, of Eqs. (1)–(3), i.e., the parameters of the failure
surfaces. In addition, the function ZðlÞ for Eqs. (6) and (7) should
dep
be supplied in the form of a table (a set of 13 value pairs), an dl ¼ for p o 0 ð12Þ
equation of state and other features of the material. In order to ½1 þ ðs=100Þðrf 1Þð1 þðp=rf ft ÞÞb2
1284 N. Markovich et al. / Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 47 (2011) 1280–1290

Here the parameter, s, is an input user-defined scaled damage

measure, which can have values from 0 to 100. For s ¼0 the
strain-rate effects are omitted, and for s¼100 the strain-rate
effects are fully included.
The drawback of using a deviatoric damage criterion for
concrete is that the material cannot accumulate damage under
a pure volumetric extension, i.e., triaxial-tensile test, because the
second invariant of the deviatoric stress is zero. Therefore, a
volumetric damage increment was added to the deviatoric
damage whenever the stress path was in proximity of the triaxial
tensile test path. The proximity to this path is calculated from the
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ratio 9ð 3J2 Þ=p9, sometime called the stress triaxialiality. The
volumetric damage increment is limited by a proximity para-
meter, fd , given by
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
9ð 3J2 Þ=p9 pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
fd ¼ 1 when 0 r 9ð 3J2 Þ=p9o 0:1 ð13Þ Fig. 6. Comparison of K&C simulation results with A&S model for a 100 MPa
0:1
strong concrete.
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
fd ¼ 0 when 9ð 3J2 Þ=p9 Z 0:1 ð14Þ

Then, the modified effective plastic strain damage parameter is 140

incremented by yield surface points fr = 15 MPa
120
Dl ¼ b3 fd kd ðev ev,yield Þ ð15Þ
100
where b3 is a parameter that prescribes the rate of damage fr = 10 MPa
stress, MPa (5)
primarily in the triaxial tensile regime, and ev and ev,yield are the 80
volumetric strain and volumetric yield strain, respectively. (4) fr = 5 MPa
60
(3)
(2)
40
5. An improved calibration of the concrete damage model (1) fr = 1 MPa
20
As mentioned above, the current version of the Concrete fr = 0 MPa
Damage Model in LS-Dyna is available with an option of auto- 0
0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02
matically generating the required parameters, provided the user
axial strain
supplies the unconfined compressive strength of a concrete. This
makes the model easy to use and available to occasional users Fig. 7. A&S concrete constitutive behavior results for a 50 MPa strong concrete.
with little understanding of the model, or with no laboratory data Points 1–5 are the yield strength points for 0, 1, 5, 10 and 15 MPa confinement
for a specific concrete. This modified model is also known as the pressures, respectively.
K&C model. In the present study, results obtained with the just
mentioned automatic option are referred to as the K&C results. 140
As demonstrated in Figs. 5 and 6, the results of simulations maximum surface points (5) fr = 15MPa
performed for 50 and 100 MPa strong concretes, using K&C’s auto- 120
matic parameter generation, were found to be in poor agreement (4)
100
with the empirical relations of Attard and Setunge [13]. This poor fr = 10 MPa
stress, MPa

(3)
comparison motivated the authors of the present study to better 80
calibrate the Concrete Damage Model. This improved calibration fr = 5MPa
60 (2)

40 (1)
fr = 1 MPa
20
fr = 0 MPa
0
0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02
axial strain

Fig. 8. A&S concrete constitutive behavior results for a 50 MPa strong concrete.
Points 1–5 are the maximum strength points for 0, 1, 5, 10 and 15 MPa
confinement pressures, respectively.

retains the feature that all parameters are defined as a function of

the unconfined compressive strength, fc0 .

5.1. Shear surface parameters

The Concrete Damage Model is based on three independent

Fig. 5. Comparison of K&C simulation results with A&S model for a 50 MPa strong shear surfaces (shown in Fig. 3a) that define the plastic behavior
concrete. of the material. These curves are determined from available
 N. Markovich et al. / Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 47 (2011) 1280–1290 1285

laboratory data of unconfined compression and triaxial compres- (5) represent different levels of confinement: 0, 1, 5, 10 and
sion tests over a range of confining pressures. In the present 15 MPa, respectively.
study, the empirical relations of Attard and Setunge [13] are used. The third step of the calibration process was to fit functions to
These relations, from whom the estimated tests results may be the points of each curve. To use Malvar’s model, these fitting
generated numerically, cover a wide range of strong concretes functions had to be in the form of Eqs. (2)–(4) for yield, and
(20–120 MPa). maximum and residual failure surfaces, respectively. A nonlinear
As shown in Fig. 3b, three stress–strain points define each least squares fitting procedure was used to obtain the eight
curve: the yield, the maximum strength and the residual strength. appropriate constants (ai) of Eqs. (2)–(4) that best fit the failure
The calibration process consists of a few steps: surfaces obtained for 50 MPa strong concrete.
The first step of the calibration process is to extract these The fourth step of the calibration process used the same
three points from the A&S concrete stress–strain curves [13]. approach applied for the 50 MPa strong concrete (repeating
Figs. 7 and 8 show curves obtained from A&S relations for a
50 MPa strong concrete. Fig. 7 shows yield points and Fig. 8 shows 80
maximum strengths points. The points indexed from (1) to (5) are yield surface (5)
70 yield surface points
the yield/maximum strengths obtained for 0, 1, 5, 10 and 15 MPa
confinement pressures, respectively. 60 (4)
Unlike other materials that have a linear elastic stress–strain (3)
50

, MPa
response, concrete has a fairly nonlinear elastic behavior. Differ-
ent sources suggest that the elastic response can be assumed for 40 (2)
axial stress of up to 0.33–0.65 of the unconfined compressive (1)
30
strength. However, for high strength concrete (HSC) the ascend-
ing branch is fairly linear. A few values (0.4, 0.5 and 0.6) of 20
unconfined compressive strength were used to define the slope of 10
the curve that is treated as linear, and the resulting differences
0
were insignificant. For the final calibration, yield at 0.65 of the
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
unconfined compressive strength of concrete was assumed. The
residual strength due to confinement should be obtained for large P, MPa
strains where the stress difference becomes almost constant; the Fig. 10. Yield surface for a 50 MPa strong concrete in meridian plane, based on
results are shown in Fig. 9. A&S results.
The shear surfaces in Malvar’s Concrete Damage Model [8–11]
are described in the meridian plane, as stress difference vs. mean 140
stress (see Fig. 3a). Once the stress–strain curves of a specific
maximum surface
concrete are obtained using A&S results, it is possible to present 120 maximum surface points
the three shear surfaces in the meridian plane. This is done by (5)
100
transforming from terms of axial stress and confining pressure, to (4)
, MPa

stress difference and mean stress. Since for triaxial compression 80 (3)
of cylinders, the lateral and the radial principal stresses are equal, (2)
the mean stress could be written as follows: 60
(1)
p ¼ 13 I1 ¼ 13 ðs1 þ s2 þ s3 Þ ¼ 13ðs1 þ 2s2 Þ ð16Þ 40

The second step of the calibration process was to map the set 20
identified points into the meridian plane. Figs. 10–12 show the 0
resulting yield, and maximum and residual surfaces for a 50 MPa 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
strong concrete. In these figures, the points numbered (1)– P, MPa

Fig. 11. Maximum failure surface for a 50 MPa strong concrete in meridian plane,
based on A&S results.

90
80 residual surface
residual surface points (5)
70
60
(4)
, MPa

50
40
(3)
30
20
(2)
10 (1)
0
0 10 20 30 40 50
P, MPa

Fig. 9. A&S concrete constitutive behavior results for 50 MPa strong concrete, Fig. 12. Residual failure surface for a 50 MPa strong concrete in meridian plane,
residual strength points. based on A&S results.
1286 N. Markovich et al. / Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 47 (2011) 1280–1290
Fig. 13. Evaluation of the parameter a0 for a wide range of strong concretes.
Fig. 14. Evaluation of the parameter a1 for a wide range of strong concretes.
Fig. 15. Evaluation of the parameter a2 for a wide range of strong concretes.
steps 1–3) to obtain a set of eight failure surface constants for
each strength of concrete. In the present study, this was per-
formed for strengths of concrete from 30 to 120 MPa in 10 MPa
increments.
Since the eight constants (ai), which define the shape of the
shear surfaces, are user provided, it is advantageous to calculate
them using formulas that are functions of the concrete uncon-
fined compressive strength.
Fig. 16. Evaluation of the parameter a0y for a wide range of strong concretes.
Fig. 17. Evaluation of the parameter a1y for a wide range of strong concretes.
Fig. 18. Evaluation of the parameter a2y for a wide range of strong concretes.
Thus, the fifth step of the calibration process was to fit a function
for each of the eight constants as a function of the concrete
strength, f c0 . The results of the fitting were substituted into
Malvar’s Concrete Model and simulations were performed to
compare the results to the A&S curves. It was necessary to modify
the fitted curves of parameters a0 and a2 to obtain an accuracy of
less than 10%. The resulting formulas needed to calculate the
constants of the eight failure surfaces for a strong concrete, f c0 , are
a0 ¼ 2:442fc00:4369 ð17Þ
 N. Markovich et al. / Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 47 (2011) 1280–1290 1287

a1 ¼ 1:084fc00:2463 ð18Þ a2y ¼ 0:03181fc00:5355 ð22Þ

a2 ¼ 0:03276fc00:6416 ð19Þ a1f ¼ 0:4773 ð23Þ

a0y ¼ 2:525lnðfc0 15:18Þ ð20Þ 0:11

a1 ¼ ð24Þ
fc0
a1y ¼ 1:846fc00:2706 ð21Þ
These formulas (namely, the BGU Concrete Damage Model) can
be implemented in a future version of the Concrete Damage Model
of LS-Dyna in order to simplify the use of the model. Figs. 13–20
compare the shear surface constants as evaluated for a wide range
of strong concretes by means of the present BGU and the K&C
automatic parameters generation.

5.2. The damage function

As explained earlier, the stress difference is interpolated using

Fig. 19. Evaluation of the parameter a1f for a wide range of strong concretes.
Eqs. (6) and (7). The function Z(l), used by these equations, is the
model input data provided as a table of at most 13 (Z,l)-pairs. The
damage function should start with 0 at l ¼0, increase to 1 at some
value l ¼ lm, and then decrease back to 0 at some large value of l.
At the beginning of the subroutine the value of lm is defined
simply as the value of l that corresponds to the first relative
maximum of Z in the (Z,l) set [1]. In accordance with A&S curves,
lm ¼0.00009 was used in the BGU calibration.
Fig. 21 shows the suggested values of the BGU calibration for
the discrete damage parameters (BGU) in comparison with the
automatically generated values (K&C).
The BGU (Z,l) set is used for all our simulations in the model
calibration process; the full set (13 pairs) is provided in Table 1.

5.3. The damage scaling factor for compression b1

The parameter b1 in Eq. (11) governs the strain softening in

compression and is called the ‘‘damage scaling factor’’ or the
‘‘damage scaling exponent’’. This parameter enables the material
formulation to match an observed compression behavior depend-
ing on the lateral confinement [11]. It changes the rate at which
the damage occurs. Since b1 is involved in the determination of
the modified effective plastic strain, l, by Eq. (11), the stress–
strain curve expands or compresses along the strain axis, depend-
ing on the value of b1. Fig. 22 shows computed results for triaxial
compression of a 100 mm diameter and 200 mm high concrete
Fig. 20. Evaluation of the parameter a2f for a wide range of strong concretes.
cylinder of 50 MPa unconfined strength under 15 MPa confine-
ment pressure. Different values of b1 were used to demonstrate
the influence of b1 on the softening part of the material model.

Table 1
Input data of the damage function.

k g

0.00E þ00 0.000

2.80E-05 0.700
5.00E-05 0.900
9.00E-05 1.000
1.70E-04 0.900
3.00E-04 0.750
5.50E-04 0.540
1.00E-03 0.330
1.65E-03 0.170
2.50E-03 0.090
3.50E-03 0.032
7.00E-03 0.005
Fig. 21. BGU damage function (BGU) in comparison to the automatically gener- 1.00E þ10 0.000
ated one (K&C).
1288 N. Markovich et al. / Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 47 (2011) 1280–1290

Fig. 23. The correlation of the module of elasticity (Young’s module).

Fig. 22. The effects of b1 on the compression behavior.

Table 2
EOS input data for a 50 MPa strong concrete. the compressive strength. Nevertheless, it is very important to find
an appropriate correlation, which will fit experimental data in order
Volume strain Pressure (MPa)
to obtain good computational results. Generally, if the concrete is of
0 0
normal weight, the general equation for Young’s module could be
 0.007034 96 written as follows:
 0.02896 240
 0.050981 390 Ec ¼ qðfc0 þ cÞw þ k ð27Þ
 0.062837 565
 0.072613 737 where q, c and w are some constant coefficients and k is a correcting
 0.144392 2000 factor. The coefficients could be found empirically from test results.
 0.216174 3263 The correcting factor, k, is sometimes neglected. Since the A&S
 0.28795 4526
results have been used in this study as a substitute for experimental
 0.359729 5789
results, the best fit for the module of elasticity (Young’s module) as a
function of the strength of concrete was found to be

5.4. The equation of state Ec ¼ 1056ðfc0 Þ0:8139 ð28Þ

This correlation of the module of elasticity is presented

Ten pairs of data points were used to define the tabulated
function of the equation of state (EOS), see Eq. (1). LS-Dyna
linearly extrapolates between these data points. It is important
to note that, in general, LS-Dyna expects the strain to be provided
as logarithmic strains (true strain):
V
ev ¼ ln ð25Þ
V0
For volumetric strains that are higher than 10%, the conversion
becomes important. Thus, the volumetric strain, ev, in Eq. (1) is
entered as the natural logarithm of the relative volume. Also, the
volumetric strain values should be provided with the correct sign
(negative in compression) and in descending order. The pressure
is defined positive in compression.
Various sources suggest different EOS curves of concrete
[15–20]. In the present study a modified one from [20] was used.
Table 2 presents the EOS input value for a 50 MPa strong concrete.
This EOS has been used in the present study for all strong
concretes. However, the elastic bulk module depends on the
strength of a specific concrete. The initial part of the curve (from
the origin to the first data point) is the linear response character-
ized by the elastic bulk module and is determined from
the module of elasticity, Ec (Young’s module), by means of the
following expression:
dp Ec
KV ¼ ¼ ð26Þ
deV 3ð1nÞ
An accurate method to determine the exact Young’s module of a
certain concrete does not exist, neither experimentally nor based on
in Fig. 23.
6. Numerical results
A computational model similar to a cylindrical specimen used
for A&S experiments [13] has been used in the present study. The
cylindrical specimen was 100 mm in diameter and of 200 mm
height. An eighth of the cylinder with three symmetry planes was
defined in LS-Dyna. It is important to note that since the planar
end faces of the tested cylinders were ground (polished) to obtain
smooth surfaces, these end faces were allowed to slide radially in
the computational model. The friction on the end faces affects the
so-called ‘‘barreling’’ of the specimen, i.e., radial displacements
near the mid-height. However, it was observed in the computa-
tions that fixed end faces in the model resulted in very similar
axial forces for the same axial displacements. The difference
between radially fixed and free end faces results was less than 2%.
The loading was applied in accordance with the A&S ‘‘test’’
results, i.e., quasi-static loading. Initially, the confining pressure
was applied gradually up to a desired value (0–15 MPa) with
axially fixed ends in order to prevent initial damage of a sample
due to extension. Then, axial displacement was applied with a
predefined velocity, such that in 100 s an axial compressive
displacement of 10% of the cylinder height was achieved.
A displacement control (rather than pressure control) was used
in the model, and in the tests, to follow the softening that
occurred after the maximum strength was reached. During the
 N. Markovich et al. / Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 47 (2011) 1280–1290 1289

Table 3
Absorbed energy calculation for a 50 MPa strong concrete.

Concrete Strength (MPa) 50

Confinement (MPa) 0 5 10 15

Energy
A&S 0.21 2.16 3.30 4.10
K&C 0.39 2.42 3.89 4.87
BGU 0.20 1.90 3.15 4.10

Error (%)
K&C 89 12 18 19
BGU 1.7 11.8 4.5 0.1

Table 4
Fig. 24. Concrete Damage Material Model, Release III for a 50 MPa strong concrete Absorbed energy calculation for a 100 MPa strong concrete.
simulation results, calculated with K&C, and BGU input data are compared to A&S
constitutive behavior. Concrete Strength (MPa) 100

Confinement (MPa) 0 5 10 15

Energy
A&S 0.37 2.74 4.60 6.05
K&C 2.04 3.33 5.37 6.76
BGU 0.41 2.42 4.07 5.55

Error (%)
K&C 446 21 17 12
BGU 10 12 11 8

The results of the absorbed energy calculations for 50 and

100 MPa strong concretes are presented in Tables 3 and 4,
respectively.
As can be seen, the BGU calibrated model resulted in a much
better approximation of A&S data than that obtained by the K&C
calibrations.
Fig. 25. Concrete Damage Material Model, Release III for a 100 MPa strong
concrete simulation results, calculated with K&C, and BGU input data are
compared to A&S constitutive behavior. 7. Conclusions

axial displacement loading, the confinement pressure was main-
tained constant.
As mentioned above, all the parameters were calibrated as
functions of an unconfined strong concrete (fc0 ) and implemented in
the LS-Dyna’s input file. Figs. 24 and 25 show results computed for 50
and 100 MPa strong concretes, respectively. They show a comparison
of the present results (BGU) and the results obtained using the K&C
generated parameters (K&C) with the A&S ‘‘test’’ results). Each curve
is for a different confinement pressure (0, 5, 10 and 15 MPa).
Considering the maximum strength, the deviation of the K&C
and BGU calibrations s from the A&S ‘‘test’’ results is no more than
2%, which is acceptable, especially in view of the fact that the A&S
relations were within 10% error [13]. This is also in the range of
the error expected when comparing test results on concrete
specimens cast from the same batch and of the same age [21].
Anyone familiar with concrete testing would consider a 10% error
as acceptable. To establish an objective and meaningful compar-
ison between the BGU and the K&C calibrations to the A&S stress–
strain curves, the authors suggest calculating the energy absorbed
by the specimens during compression tests, i.e., the area under
the stress–strain curves. Then, the errors from the A&S results
could be estimated using the following definitions:
energyK&C energyA&S
errorK&C ¼  100%
energyA&S
energyBGU energyA&S
errorBGU ¼  100%
energyA&S
An improvement in the calibration of the LS-Dyna Concrete
Damage Model was obtained while retaining the option of the
user-friendly automatic parameter generation model feature. The
improved calibration is in better agreement with three triaxial test
results published by Attard and Setunge [13], which are available for
a wide range of strong concretes (20–120 MPa). This option is very
useful for the occasional users of LS-Dyna who need to perform
analyses involving concrete when little or no information is available
on the specific concrete aside from its unconfined strength. The main
result of this study is the BGU calibrated model that behaves more
similarly to the A&S ‘‘test’’ results than the calibrated model imple-
mented by Karagosian & Case into the latest version of LS-Dyna. This
is of course expected since the calibration was done according to the
A&S correlations. It should be further noted that the A&S experiments
were limited to a low confinement level of only 20 MPa. For high
strength concrete, this is a low confinement. Further experiments
or published data are needed to improve the calibration. Radial
displacements of the specimens should also be measured in order to
better describe the behavior of the concrete. Unfortunately such data
were not provided by Attard and Setunge [13].
Acknowledgments
ð29Þ
The authors would like to express their thanks to Barak Ostraich
for assistance in numerical simulations and guidance in the use of
LS-Dyna. Dr. Leonard (Len) Schwer was kind enough to revise and
ð30Þ
add some very enlightening comments, and for this the authors are
1290 N. Markovich et al. / Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 47 (2011) 1280–1290
deeply thankful. Many thanks also to Dr. Javier Malvar for clearing up
some aspects of his model and providing helpful data.
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