When designing new structures, common beam and plate finite element models are used to calculate the structure’s deformations and internal forces. For existing structures however, such models are mostly absent. Hence, in this part of the research, a new multifunctional beam and plate FE model is developed for the assessment of existing concrete structures. This model will start from an existing FE model (the Direct Stiffness Method), and will extend it to account for time-dependent damage and degradation effects. Like this, the structural performance of existing corroded structures can be predicted in time.
In order to make these predictions, incorporating information about the condition of the structure is crucial. Hence, the model will be able to use all types of information from inspections and monitoring to predict the current condition of the structure as accurately as possible. Bayesian techniques will be used to deal with this, including the spatial and temporal variation of this information. The framework will then be further extended towards a probabilistic calculation method, enabling reliability-based performance predictions.
Lastly, the developed model will be validated both numerically and experimentally.