Soft projectile impacts on thin reinforced concrete slabs: tests, modelling and simulations

Numerical simulations of reinforced concrete structures subjected to high velocity impacts and explosions remain a difficult task today. Since ten years and more now, the CEA-Gramat has maintained a continuous research effort with the help of different French universities in order to overcome encountered difficulties in modelling the behaviour of concrete structures under severe loading. These difficulties are related to numerical aspects (convergence difficulties of the non linear stress strain relation in 3D configuration, efficiency of the numerical procedure and robustness), but also due to the ability of the material model to simulate the accurately behaviour of a very complex and heterogeneous material like concrete. A new concrete model, named PRM model, has been developed at CEA-Gramat (Pontiroli, Rouquand and Mazars) to predict the concrete response under a large range of dynamic loadings. Works presented in this paper have been performed in the framework of the French VULCAIN PGCU 2007 research project (founded by the French National Research Agency). This project aims at defining a theoretical and probabilistic methodology in order to assess the structural safety of industrial structures that might be submitted to transient loadings such as blasts or impacts generated by various projectiles. A complementary objective is to improve diagnosis, prevention or protection actions. This scientific program gathers well-known and complementary scientific institutes, firms and universities in France. (authors)