Plastic behavior of simply supported reinforced concrete plates at moderately large deflections

Abstract It is known from experiments that the actual load-carrying capacities of plates are larger than those predicted by the limit analysis theory. The behavior of plastic structures beyond the bending collapse load is influenced by the changes in geometry of a structure during the process of plastic deformation. In the present paper, an investigation of the load-deflection relationship for simply supported rectangular reinforced concrete plates is presented. The tensile membrane action is found to be localized in zones of bending yield hinges. The zones of pure membrane response consequently develop as the load increases. The paper presents a kinematical method of analysis of plastic plates beyond the bending collapse load. Kinematically admissible collapse modes are studied and the associated dissipation functions are derived. Load-deflection relationships are obtained for various yield patterns. The theoretical results are compared with experimental data following from model tests.