This article shows that the load-bearing behavior of concrete and reinforced concrete beams can be successfully simulated using the material models included by default in the widely used ANSYS Mechanical software. The necessary material parameters are determined using laboratory tests. These are tests on concrete cylinders to determine the compressive and tensile strength as well as the modulus of elasticity. The fracture energy is determined on notched beams. This test is then simulated using the Drucker-Prager model in combination with Rankine yield surfaces and exponential softening. The calculated load-deformation behavior matches the test curves well when using the experimentally determined material parameters. A comparative calculation with normatively proposed parameters overestimates the fracture energy and thus the load-bearing capacity of the test specimens. The numerical model is then validated using reinforced concrete beam tests. The model with the experimentally determined material parameters can reproduce the load-bearing behavior of the test specimens well, but it also becomes clear that appropriate modeling of the bond behavior is important. In this case, the load-bearing behavior of the beams with spring elements between concrete and reinforcement nodes is best described. Furthermore, it is shown that the use of reduced or fully integrated elements can have a major influence on the simulated softening behavior of concrete.