ABAQUS Concrete Material Generator

Concrete Damaged Plasticity (CDP) input data for ABAQUS

Material data

Compression
MPa – MPa –
Tension
MPa mm N/mm mm
  • If a parameter is unknown, set it to 0 and it will be estimated (shown in blue on the right).
  • The nonlinear models are only valid for normal-strength concrete, fcu < 100 MPa.
  • Materials with strain softening are mesh sensitive. Calibrate your model mesh size against test data.
Concrete stress–strain curve showing fcu, fc0, E, εc and ftu

Plots

Compression
Compression damage
Tension
Tension damage

ABAQUS input

About this tool

Overview

This is a tool for generating ABAQUS input data for the Concrete Damaged Plasticity (CDP) material model: compressive hardening, tension stiffening, and the compression and tension damage parameters.

Using the tool

  1. Compression: choose a model (Carreira & Chu, Model Code 1990, GB 50010-2010) or Test data (browse for a file, paste two columns, or load the sample compression test). A value of 0 for E, εc or ftu means “estimate it”; the value actually used is shown in blue beside each field.
  2. Tension: define tension stiffening as stress vs cracking strain (needs the element characteristic length lo) or stress vs cracking displacement (Linear, Bilinear or Power softening). The fracture energy Gf is entered directly or estimated from the maximum aggregate size dmax.
  3. Plots and tables update as you type. Each table saves as the same text file the desktop app writes, or copies as tab-separated values for Excel or the ABAQUS/CAE data table.

Compression

The curve is then processed for ABAQUS. The elastic limit is fc0 = (fc0/fcu) fcu, and the elastic modulus used is the secant to that point, E = fc0/εc0. Beyond it:

εin = ε − σ/E,   dc = 1 − σ/fcu (after the peak; 0 before)

The hardening table stops once σ drops to 0.1fcu; the damage table starts at the peak and stops before dc reaches 0.999.

Tension

The fracture energy from dmax follows Model Code 1990: Gf = Gf0(fcu/10)0.7 with Gf0 = 0.025, 0.030, 0.058 N/mm and α = 8, 7, 5 for dmax = 8, 16, 32 mm (interpolated).

dt = 1 − σ/ftu   (tables stop at σ = 0.1ftu and before dt reaches 0.95)

ABAQUS keywords

*Elastic
 E, 0.2
*Concrete Damaged Plasticity
 ψ, ε, fb0/fc0, K, μ   (e.g. 40, 0.1, 1.16, 0.667, 0)
*Concrete Compression Hardening
 <Comp. hardening: stress, inelastic strain>
*Concrete Tension Stiffening[, type=DISPLACEMENT]
 <Tens. stiffening: stress, cracking strain or displacement>
*Concrete Compression Damage
 <Comp. damage: dc, inelastic strain>
*Concrete Tension Damage[, type=DISPLACEMENT]
 <Tens. damage: dt, cracking strain or displacement>

The plasticity parameters on the second data line are typical values for illustration (dilation angle, flow potential eccentricity, biaxial-to-uniaxial strength ratio, Kc, viscosity); this tool does not generate them.

Citation & references

Elkady, A. (2023) “ABAQUS_CDP_Generator: A tool for generating concrete damage parameters for ABAQUS”, Zenodo, Version v23.04. doi:10.5281/zenodo.7755926

Author: Dr Ahmed Elkady, University of Southampton

To report bugs or give feedback, raise an issue through the GitHub repository or e-mail a.elkady@soton.ac.uk.

Web version of ABAQUS CDP Generator v26-01. Relative to the desktop app: results update live and estimated values are shown beside the inputs instead of overwriting them; with dmax selected, Gf is always re-estimated; with test data, fcu for the Gf and EC2 estimates is the peak of the test curve.

Disclaimer

These tools are provided for research and educational purposes only, without warranty of any kind. The generated material data are estimates from the cited models and your inputs, and are only as reliable as those models within their validity ranges. Results should be checked independently by a qualified engineer before being used in design or assessment.