It is hard to determine the energy dissipation that occurs during an earthquake, especially where reinforced concrete structures are concerned. The reason for this is the many different causes of energy dissipation, these dissipations typically creep into the essential pattern of the structures as a uniform, slight damping, and which is heavily quantify. The challenge is therefore to ascertain how to carry out damping in a way that relies more on the laws of physics themselves. This study aims at bringing some clarifications to this problem. In order to achieve this, two objectives were targeted during the case study: the first consisted in experimentally qualifying and quantifying the sources of damping in concrete, the second aims at developing a method which model both the overall behaviour and the damping in a realistic way with low computational costs. Reverse 3-point bending tests were carried out to determine and quantify the mechanisms responsible for damping. The tests were carried out on sound beams, and also on pre-damaged beams. It was possible to relate the damping to the damage, the intensity of the load and the erosion of the crack surfaces. These tests were modeled using three physical constitutive laws, one proved to be relevant. The behaviour law thus identified allowed us to develop a simplified model to be used during probabilistic assessments. This model is based on a simple constitutive law, coupled with the updating of viscous damping. It is carried out according to the evolutions of the mechanical properties of the structure and the load. Three updates of the damping were developed and subjected to a serie of mono axial seismic tests on a column.
