Chapter Eight

Drucker-Prager & Concrete

Drucker-Prager Plasticity and Concrete
Chapter Overview Training Manual

Advanced Structural Nonlinearities 6.0

This chapter will cover some geotechnical constitutive
models, namely Drucker-Prager plasticity and concrete,
which are available in ANSYS.
Drucker-Prager is useful for granular materials such as soils,
rock, concrete.
The concrete model allows for characterization of brittle
materials, including rock and certain ceramics. Cracking and
crushing options are present.

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Drucker-Prager Plasticity and Concrete
... Chapter Overview Training Manual

Advanced Structural Nonlinearities 6.0

In this chapter, the following will be discussed:
A. Drucker-Prager plasticity
B. Concrete model

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Drucker-Prager Plasticity and Concrete
A. Drucker-Prager Plasticity Training Manual

Advanced Structural Nonlinearities 6.0

Drucker-Prager (DP) plasticity is applicable to granular
(frictional) materials such as soils, rock, and concrete.
Unlike metal plasticity, the yield surface is a pressure-
dependent von Mises surface for DP:
1
1 T
s M s
2
e 3 m
2

where e is the modified
equivalent stress, m is the
hydrostatic pressure, and
is a material constant.

Plotted in principal stress

space, the yield surface is
a cone.

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Drucker-Prager Plasticity and Concrete
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Advanced Structural Nonlinearities 6.0

Some important points to note:
In compression, an increase in hydrostatic pressure produces
an increase in the yield strength.
Because volumetric strain is associated with hydrostatic
pressure, volumetric expansion of the material due to yielding
can be accounted for.
No hardening is assumed, so the material behavior is elasto-
perfectly plastic.

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Drucker-Prager Plasticity and Concrete
... Drucker-Prager Plasticity Training Manual

Advanced Structural Nonlinearities 6.0

We can write the yield criterion in the following form.
1
1 T
s M s
2
F 3 m y
2
The material parameter and y are defined as
2 sin 6 c cos
y
3 3 sin 3 3 sin

where is the angle of internal friction and c is the cohesion

value.
The cohesion value (shear yield stress) c is required input for
the DP model. It has units of stress
The angle of internal friction is also required input. It has
units of degrees.

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Drucker-Prager Plasticity and Concrete
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Advanced Structural Nonlinearities 6.0

Note that the yield stress in compression is greater than the
yield stress in tension.
If you have uniaxial tensile t and compressive c yield
stresses as your raw data, they can be converted to material
parameters and c through the following:

c t 3 3
sin 1
3 c t 2 3

2 c t y 3 3 sin
y c
3 c t 6 cos

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Drucker-Prager Plasticity and Concrete
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Advanced Structural Nonlinearities 6.0

Simple manipulation of the equations show that the distance
between the origin and yield in tension in principal stress
space is equal to (c)cot()

3 m y
2 sin 6 c cos
3 m
3 3 sin 3 3 sin
m c cot
c cot

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Drucker-Prager Plasticity and Concrete
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Advanced Structural Nonlinearities 6.0

Besides the two aforementioned parameters and c, there is
an additional parameter called the dilatancy angle f which is
input for DP.
The dilatancy angle f controls the amount of volumetric
expansion which will occur.
An example for compacted granular materials is when the grains
rise over each other as the material shears.
One way to picture this is plotting the yield surface on the
meridional plane. p is hydrostatic pressure, and q is the
modified equivalent stress.

q f

p
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Advanced Structural Nonlinearities 6.0

On the meridional plane below, f indicates direction of plastic
flow (dilation angle). On the other hand, describes the
direction of the outward normal to the yield surface (angle of
internal friction).
If f=, then the flow rule is termed associative. Significant
volumetric expansion will occur as a result.
If f<, then the flow rule is nonassociative. Less volumetric
expansion will occur.
If f=0, then no volumetric expansion will occur (plastic flow is
normal to yield surface). This is usually a more conservative
approach.
q f

p
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Drucker-Prager Plasticity and Concrete
... ANSYS Procedure for DP Training Manual

Advanced Structural Nonlinearities 6.0

Only certain elements support DP plasticity:
Core elements: PLANE42, SOLID45, PLANE82, SOLID92, ahd
SOLID95
Other elements: LINK1, PLANE2, LINK8, PIPE20, BEAM23,
BEAM24, SHELL43, SHELL51, PIPE60, SOLID62, SOLID65,
SHELL91, SHELL93, and SHELL143

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Drucker-Prager Plasticity and Concrete
... ANSYS Procedure for DP Training Manual

Advanced Structural Nonlinearities 6.0

The DP material parameters can be input via the Materials
GUI or the TB commands:
Main Menu > Preprocessor > Material Props > Material Models
Structural > Nonlinear > Inelastic > Non-metal Plasticity
All constants should be input (i.e., cohesion value cannot be zero). Note that
elastic material properties (Youngs Modulus EX) also needs to be input. No
temperature-dependency is allowed for this material law.

TB,DP,1,,,0
TBDATA,1,cohesion
TBDATA,2,fricangle
TBDATA,3,flowangle

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Drucker-Prager is a rate-independent plasticity model. For solution
options, the same considerations apply for models with other rate-
independent plasticity.
Specify nonlinear geometric effects (NLGEOM,ON), as needed.
Specify an adequate number of substeps to capture the path-dependent
response.

Postprocessing considerations:
If the material has yielded, equivalent plastic strain (NL,EPEQ) will be
non-zero
The equivalent stress parameter pl (NL,SEPL) is the von Mises
equivalent stress at the current hydrostatic stress level:
epl 3 y 3 m
Note that for equivalent strains (EPPL,EQV), ANSYS assumes
incompressible inelastic strains (=0.5). However, if f0, this is not true
(volumetric expansion occurs with yielding). Consider the following
case of inelastic strains when f0, where eqv should be non-zero:
xpl A, ypl A, zpl A eqv
pl
0.0
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Drucker-Prager Plasticity and Concrete
B. Concrete Model Training Manual

Advanced Structural Nonlinearities 6.0

The concrete material model in ANSYS can be used to model
brittle materials, such as concrete, rock and ceramics.
Both cracking and crushing failure modes are included.
Prior to failure, behavior is assumed to be linear elastic.
However, plasticity and/or creep may be combined with concrete
to provide nonlinear behavior prior to failure.
This constitutive model is meant for low tensile strength but
high compressive load carrying capability.
A smeared reinforcement can be specified via real constants
along three element coordinate directions, or discrete
reinforcements can be separately added via LINK or COMBIN
elements.

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Drucker-Prager Plasticity and Concrete
... Concrete Model Training Manual

Advanced Structural Nonlinearities 6.0

The concrete material has the following characteristics:
Material calculations are performed at each integration point of the
element.
The concrete model assumes linear elastic behavior up until the failure
point. At the failure load ( c or t), crushing or cracking can occur, and the
material completely fails at that point.
In the case of crushing (compression), the material completely fails.
Cracking (tension) is permitted in three orthogonal directions at each
integration point. Cracking can occur in one or several directions.
For the direction in which cracking occurs, tensile
strength essentially becomes zero, although, if the
crack closes, compressive stresses normal to the ft
crack can be transferred. Material properties for
directions in which crack has not occurred remain
the same.
A shear transfer coefficient t and c define the
shear strength reduction factor for loads which
induce sliding across the crack face.
fc
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Advanced Structural Nonlinearities 6.0

The concrete material can be combined with other nonlinearities:
Plasticity and creep may be included with concrete. Usually, multilinear
elastic or Drucker-Prager plasticity is used for concrete. Note that the
plasticity yield surface must lie inside the concrete failure surface,
otherwise no yielding will occur.
The concrete failure surface as plotted in principal stress space is shown
on right. Hence, the
yield surface associated
with any other nonlinear
material behavior (i.e.,
plasticity) must lie inside
of the concrete failure
surface. Otherwise, the
material will completely
fail and never yield.
Adjustments to stresses
due to plasticity are
performed prior to the
cracking/crushing checks.

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Advanced Structural Nonlinearities 6.0

For material failure, there are essentially four domains to consider:
0 1 2 3 (compression - compression - compression)
1 0 2 3 (tension - compression - compression)
1 2 0 3 (tension - tension - compression)
1 2 3 0 (tension - tension - tension )

For three-dimensional stress state, the failure surface is a function

of the principal stresses and five input parameters discussed next.
The failure surface is different for each of the four domains noted
above.
The user is referred to the ANSYS Theory Manual, Section 4.7, for details
on the equations.

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... Concrete Model Training Manual

Advanced Structural Nonlinearities 6.0

The required concrete material constants are as follows:
Ultimate tensile strength, ft
Ultimate compressive strength, fc
Ultimate biaxial compressive strength, fcb
Ambient hydrostatic stress state, ah
Ultimate compressive strength for a state of biaxial compression superimposed
on hydrostatic stress state, f1
Ultimate compressive strength for a state of uniaxial compression
superimposed on hydrostatic stress state, f2

The first two constants ft and fc are required. The others default to

f cb 1.2 f c
f1 1.45 f c
f 2 1.725 f c
This approximation is only valid for situations with a low hydrostatic stress
component, or . Otherwise, the user should supply all of the
above values. h 3 fc

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Advanced Structural Nonlinearities 6.0

Through the real constants, reinforcement may also be specified as
a volume ratio (VR).
The reinforcements are smeared. If discrete reinforcements need to be
modeled, use of LINK or COMBIN elements are suggested.
The required input consists of the rebar material number, volume ratio,
and orientation angles and .
The reinforcement may also include plasticity and creep. Generally, one
of the more common kinematic hardening laws is used for the rebars.
Up to three rebars can be specified.
The sum of the volume ratios of the rebars cannot exceed 1.0.

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Only SOLID65, 8-node hexahedral element, supports concrete.
Main Menu > Preprocessor > Element Type > Add/Edit/Delete

SOLID65 also includes extra displacement shapes by default

(KEYOPT(1))
Stress relaxation for cracking option will be discussed later.

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SOLID65 Real constants refer to
rebars (if present):
Main Menu > Real Constants >
Add/Edit/Delete

Orientation angles for and shown

below:

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The Concrete material parameters can be input via the Materials GUI
or the TB commands:
Main Menu > Preprocessor > Material Props > Material Models
Structural > Nonlinear > Inelastic > Non-metal Plasticity

t
c
ft
fc
f cb
ha
f1
f2
Tc

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Up to six sets of temperature-dependent constants may be
specified.
Constants 1-8 discussed previously. Constant 9 will be covered later. A
value of -1 for constants 3 or 4 removes cracking or crushing behavior,
respectively. Constants 5-8 default as discussed in previous slides.
(Command input shown on left.)
Constant Symbol Meaning
TB,CONC,1,1,9, 1 t Shear transfer coefficients for an open
crack. (defaults to 1e-6)
TBTEMP,0 2 c Shear transfer coefficients for a closed
crack. (defaults to 1e-6)
TBDATA,1,ShrCf-Op 3 ft Uniaxial tensile cracking stress.
TBDATA,2,ShrCf-Cl 4 fc Uniaxial crushing stress (positive).
5 fcb Biaxial crushing stress (positive).
TBDATA,3,UnTensSt 6
a
h Ambient hydrostatic stress state for
TBDATA,4,UnCompSt use with constants 7 and 8. (default is
0.0)
TBDATA,5,BiCompSt 7 f1 Biaxial crushing stress (positive) under
the ambient hydrostatic stress state
TBDATA,6,HydroPrs (constant 6).
8 f2 Uniaxial crushing stress (positive) under
TBDATA,7,BiCompSt the ambient hydrostatic stress state
(constant 6).
TBDATA,8,UnTensSt 9 Tc Stiffness multiplier for cracked tensile
TBDATA,9,TenCrFac condition, used if KEYOPT(7) = 1
(defaults to 0.6).

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If rebars are present, their orientation can be displayed via the GUI:
Utility Menu > PlotCtrls > Device Options > Vector mode [ON]
Utility Menu > PlotCtrls > Style > Size and Shape > Display of element
shapes based on real constant descriptions [ON]
Utility Menu > Plot > Elements

Or via commands:
/DEV,VECTOR,1
/ESHAPE,1
EPLOT

The rebar orientation

are shown in red.

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Advanced Structural Nonlinearities 6.0

After solution, cracks can be plotted:
Main Menu > General Postproc > Plot Results > -Concrete Plot-
Crack/Crush

or via command:
PLCRACK

Other items such as the

status (unfailed, crush,
open crack, closed
crack), crack orientation
angles, and rebar
solution, can also be
obtained.
In the plot on right, note
that crack orientation
and plane are plotted
per integration point.

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Advanced Structural Nonlinearities 6.0

Tips for Concrete Analyses:
Ensure that the concrete constants are valid for your particular
application. For example, if there is large hydrostatic stress
component (typical of large concrete structures such as dams), the
default calculated values for fcb, f1, and f2 will not be suitable.
Similarly, a tensile strength of zero would cause convergence
difficulties and is not physically realistic.
If the concrete structure completely fails in a load carrying area,
non-convergence is expected because the stiffness would be zero.
This would represent a geometric instability (see Chapter 9).
Use of large number of substeps may be required if the material
cracks or crushes, in order to ensure proper load transfer.

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Advanced Structural Nonlinearities 6.0

Tips for Concrete Analyses:
For cracking problems, use of KEYOPT(7)=1 may aid convergence.
This is stress relaxation after cracking.
After failure, the material stiffness suddenly drops to zero (figure on left).
Constant Tc is input as the ninth constant for the concrete material
property. This is a factor (default=0.6) which acts as a multiplier for the
stress relaxation.
When using adaptive descent on, the secant modulus Rt will be used. Rt
will slowly be decreased to zero during the equilibrium iterations per
substep (figure on right). This gradual change in slope to zero will aid
convergence.
This is for cracking situations only (not crushing).

ft ft
Rt
Tcft

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Tips for Concrete Analyses:
You can include the effects of pressure load stiffness in a geometric
nonlinear analysis using SOLCON,,,INCP.
The pressure load stiffness matrix aids convergence by providing a fully
consistent tangent stiffness matrix.

At those integration points where crushing has occurred, the output

plastic and creep strains are from the previous converged substep.
When cracking has occurred, the elastic strain output includes the
cracking strain.
The lost shear resistance of cracked and/or crushed elements
cannot be transferred to the rebars, which have no shear stiffness.
It is not recommended to have large-rotation effects when
cracking/crushing is present since crack angles are based on
rotation, so results could be in error in this situation.

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Drucker-Prager Plasticity and Concrete
References for Concrete Model Training Manual

Advanced Structural Nonlinearities 6.0

References for Concrete:
Willam, K. J., and Warnke, E. D., Constitutive Model for the
Triaxial Behavior of Concrete, Proceedings, International
Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering, Vol. 19,
ISMES, Bergamo, Italy, . 174 (1975).
ANSYS Theory Manual, Section 4.7 (Concrete)
ANSYS Theory Manual, Section 14.65 (SOLID65 Element)

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