Keywords: brittle behaviour, concrete, constitutive law, static (monotonic and cyclic) and dynamic (earthquake and impact) loading, non-linear finite element analysis, structural concrete.

The present article summarises the fundamental characteristics of concrete behaviour which underlie the formulation of an engineering finite element model capable of realistically predicting the behaviour of (plain or reinforced) concrete structural forms in a wide range of problems ranging from static to impact loading without the need of any kind of re-calibration. The already published evidence supporting the proposed formulation is complemented by four additional typical case studies presented herein; for each case, a comparative study is carried out between numerical predictions and the experimental data which reveals good agreement. Such evidence validates the material characteristics upon which the finite element model's formulation is based and provides an alternative explanation regarding the behaviour of structural concrete and how it should be modelled which contradicts the presently (widely) accepted assumptions adopted in the majority of finite element models used to predict the behaviour of concrete.

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