Topic: How to apply load on the joint of reinforcement bar

I encounter a problem when I simulate a pullout test of steel reinforcement from a concrete prism.  I deal with this problem as a plane stress problem and use truss element to model the steel reinforcement, for which the bond behavior have been defined. For this problem, the external forced should apply on the edge joint of the reinforcement. But, it is impossible to apply the force. When I apply the force on the same joint (shared with the edge joint of steel reinforcement) of concrete, I found that the force distribution in the steel reinforcement is unreasonable. So, I guess that the force acctually is not applied on the steel reinforcement. If anyone get to know this problem, please dome a favor. Thank you so much.

Re: How to apply load on the joint of reinforcement bar

Yes, you are right the reinforcement node is automatically connected to the concrete. Bond slip is an additional degree of freedom. The easiest way to do what you wish is described in a previous thread, please follow the recommendations there: 
http://www.cervenka.cz/forum/viewtopic.php?id=51

Re: How to apply load on the joint of reinforcement bar

Dear Dpryl,

Thank you so much for your reply.  When I follow your link, and construct a model with steel reinforcement reaching out of the specimen and embeded in a stiff block, there is no problem to apply load on the stiff block. But, when I run this model, I encounter another problem: CCFEModelExc:The execution is killed due to violation of stop step criteria. Could you please tell what is this problem and how to sovle it? Thank you!

With Best Wishes,

Cowin

Re: How to apply load on the joint of reinforcement bar

Hard to say without seeing your model. Please check the 'I get the message "The execution is killed due to violation of stop iteration criteria", what does it mean?' paragraph at our ATENA Known Problems page http://www.cervenka.cz/products/atena/known-problems.

If you still have problems, send the model to our support email along with your ATENA User ID (WR).