HRC Designer
HRC Designer
Concrete composites
 Download v4.3
Version 4.3 · Windows · Free

Analysis and design software for concrete composites

HRC Designer helps you analyse and design members made with fiber reinforced concrete, hybrid reinforced concrete, UHPC and textile reinforced concrete. You can use flexural test data to determine material properties, then calculate section and member response in SI or US units.

Download from ResearchGate Run your first example

Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit. No MATLAB license needed.
On ResearchGate, select HRC_installer_v43.exe. The installer needs internet to download the R2023a Runtime, about 2 GB if not already installed.
Version 4.3 · September 3, 2026.

UHPC Beam 1 with the tensile stress-strain model on the left and measured and fitted load-deflection curves on the right. Enlarge
UHPC Beam 1: tensile constitutive model and load–deflection fit. See the whole window

Inverse Analysis for Tensile Characterization

HRC Designer uses flexural test data to determine the material’s tensile constitutive law.

  1. Flexural testMeasured load-deflection or load-CMOD
  2. Tensile constitutive modelFitted stress-strain or stress-crack width law
  3. Member analysisSection forces, limit states and response
Strain-based characterization
UHPC
Fine cracks spread along the beam, so the response is written in stress and strain. A 102 mm square beam on a 305 mm span carries 57.8 kN, and its load-deflection record gives a law that hardens to 6.6 MPa at 0.6 percent strain before it softens. How the fit works
Crack-width based characterization
FRC
One crack opens at a notch, so the response is written in stress and crack width. A 150 mm prism with 40 kg/m³ of steel fiber peaks at 15.1 kN, then holds near 1.45 MPa out to a 1.7 mm crack as the fibers bridge it. How the fit works
Inspect calculated stress distribution

The stage slider on the specimen card above sets the stage shown here.

Specimen
UHPC Beam 1
Stage
—
Deflection
0.00 mm
Calculated load
0.00 kN
Neutral axis
—
Peak tension
—
Peak compression
—
At cursor
Point at the chart to read a depth

Calculated from the fitted material law; this is not another measured curve. Depth is measured from the top fiber, h is the 102 mm section depth.

Still from the test video: a digital image correlation strain field over the UHPC beam in four-point bending, with one crack opened at midspan, and an inset plot of nominal flexural stress against net deflection. Watch the UHPC test (opens in a new tab)

The animations show the selected 102 mm UHPC and 40 kg/m³ FRC reference specimens. The measured records and fitted material laws retain their original scales; crack growth and beam motion are schematic and exaggerated. The first-example tutorial uses a separate downloadable 150 mm FRC project.

Modules

Six modules share one material description, so a law fitted from a test can be carried straight into a member or a section calculation.

Determine material properties

Three modules
ASTM C1609 & similar
Unnotched beams in four-point or three-point bending. Strain-based tension law of FRC and UHPC from the load-deflection curve.
EN 14651 & similar
Notched prisms. Stress-crack width law from the load-CMOD curve, with the residual strengths fR1 to fR4.
TRC
Textile reinforced concrete plates. Strain-hardening tension law of the laminate from the flexural test.

Analyse a reinforced member

Two modules
Hybrid beam analysis
Rectangular FRC, UHPC or plain concrete beams with rebar. Moment-curvature with limit states, load-deflection with localization, stress and force profiles.
FRP rebar + strengthening
Steel or non-metallic bars (GFRP, BFRP, CFRP, AFRP) with an externally bonded FRP laminate; yield, rupture and debonding limit states.

Analyse any cross-section

One module
Cross-sectional analysis
Any polygon section, AASHTO and PCI presets, rebar layers and prestressing tendons. Moment-curvature, limit states and the P-M interaction diagram with ACI 318-19 factors.
Closed-form section analysis
Multi-linear tension, compression and reinforcement laws solved stage by stage without iteration. Results update as you type or drag a control point.
Inverse analysis
Auto-Fit identifies the tension law from a measured curve by nonlinear least squares with multiple starts, in seconds.
Limit states and P-M
First crack, service, yield, crushing and rupture on every curve; nominal and ACI 318-19 design interaction diagrams for any section.
Reports and data
HTML engineering report, Excel workbook of every curve, project files, dual units, undo and redo, worked example projects.
HRC Designer module selector showing the six modules in three groups Enlarge
Module selector · HRC Designer 4.3
UHPC Beam 1 with the tensile stress-strain model and the measured and fitted load-deflection curves Enlarge
UHPC Beam 1 · Load–deflection fit
Cross-sectional analysis module with a P-M interaction diagram Enlarge
Cross-sectional analysis · P-M diagram

Download

HRC Designer 4.3 is free for research, education and professional evaluation. The installer and the release notes are published on ResearchGate.

Download from ResearchGate Installation guide
Requirements and installer detail
  • The button above opens the ResearchGate listing for the software. Select the file named HRC_installer_v43.exe there. If it is not available, write to dpatel52@asu.edu.
  • Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit. No MATLAB license is needed. The installer downloads the MATLAB Runtime R2023a, about 2 GB, if the computer does not already have it, so an internet connection is needed during installation.
  • The user manual walks through every module step by step. Run your first example provides a project file and walks through the results and exports.
  • Help → Check for Updates inside the software reports when a newer version is published here.

Publications

The formulation and validation behind the software. Please cite them when results from HRC Designer appear in a publication.

Five supporting publications
Pleesudjai, C., Patel, D. D., and Mobasher, B. (2023). Generalized nonlinear moment-curvature model for serviceability-based design of hybrid reinforced concrete. Journal of Structural Engineering, 149(12), 04023188. doi:10.1061/JSENDH.STENG-12235
Patel, D. D., Pleesudjai, C., Neithalath, N., and Mobasher, B. (2026). Limit-state based design of hybrid reinforced UHPC flexural beams using parametric modeling. Engineering Structures, 357, 122353. doi:10.1016/j.engstruct.2026.122353
Patel, D., Pleesudjai, C., Bakhshi, M., Nasri, V., and Mobasher, B. (2025). Back-calculation of mechanical properties of fiber-reinforced concrete in tunnel lining segments. Structural Concrete, 26, 6019–6040. doi:10.1002/suco.70052
Pleesudjai, C., and Mobasher, B. (2023). Analytical moment-curvature solutions for generalized textile-reinforced concrete sections. Engineering Structures, 276, 115317. doi:10.1016/j.engstruct.2022.115317Elsevier Best Paper of the Year Award, Engineering Structures (2023).
Pleesudjai, C., Li, A., Dey, V., and Mobasher, B. (2021). Low-velocity impact experiments and modeling of TRC skin-aerated concrete core sandwich composites. Materials, 14(2), 390. doi:10.3390/ma14020390

The full list is in the manual.

Team

Developed by the Barzin Mobasher research group at Arizona State University, School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment.

Devansh Patel
Lead developer · Analytical Modeling and Validation
Chidchanok Pleesudjai
Analytical Modeling and Validation
Barzin Mobasher
Principal investigator

Contact Devansh Patel for help: dpatel52@asu.edu