Failure mechanism of single-layer steel reticular domes with reinforced concrete substructure subjected to severe earthquakes

This paper performs the research on failure mechanism of single-layer steel reticulated domes with the reinforced concrete substructure subjected to sever earthquakes. Based on ABAQUS, this paper built user-defined material subroutines of the steel and the reinforced concrete, which took material non-linearity and the material damage accumulation into consideration. The failure mechanism of reticulated domes with reinforced concrete substructures under severe earthquakes is studied by the nonlinear dynamic response analysis. Three different failure modes of single-layer reticular domes with different sizes of reinforced concrete substructure are illustrated. Failure criterion is put forward to discriminate the failure modes and to estimate the critical load strength for single-layer reticular domes based on the structural damage theory. It has been found that reinforced concrete substructure has significant impact on the failure behaviors and the critical load of reticulated domes under seismic loads. It is essential to consider the influence of the reinforced concrete substructure upon the failure behaviors in the structural analysis and design process of reticular domes.