Computer software for automated design of discontinuity regions of structural concrete members (DR-Design)

This project aims at developing DR-Design, a new automated design and assessment tool for discontinuity concrete regions, which at the same time will give full control for experienced users. DR-Design will be implemented into a commercial user-friendly software.

In spite of the dramatic evolution of computational tools over the past decades, designers continue using classic tools as the Strut-and-Tie Method and Stress Fields for the design of discontinuity regions (bracket, opening, anchorage, etc.) in engineering practice. These models demand tedious (and sometimes arbitrary) hand calculations that hinder their application, reduce the productivity of engineers and complicate the final understanding of the structural behaviour.  The resultant designs are lower bound solutions according to the plasticity theory and, therefore, conservative while the actual strength of the elements remains unknown. The alternative of using existing computer aided solutions is also very time-consuming since these solutions are mainly research oriented tools that typically require a high expertise (particularly regarding the selection of the reinforcement layout and/or the choice of the effective concrete compressive strength to be considered in each particular situation).

With DR-Design, structural engineers will finally be able to dimension and detail discontinuity regions consistently in a matter of minutes. In a first step, DR-Design will use an optimization method for defining all or part of the reinforcement (amount and location), with full control for experienced users to change the proposed layout. Once the reinforcement is known, DR-Design will run an analysis based on Elastic-Plastic Stress Fields in order to check all code conditions for both serviceability and ultimate limit states.