Elastic Design of Prestressed Concrete Beams

Elastic Design of Prestressed
Concrete Beams
PRESTRESSED CONCRETE STRUCTURES: ANALYSIS OF BEAM SECTION
CONCEPT
Analysis of Beam Section
Prestressed concrete- is a method for overcoming concrete’s natural
weakness in tension.
• Pre-stressing transforms concrete into an elastic material.

• Pre-stressing is a combination of high-strength steel and concrete.
• Pre-stress balances loads.
Elastic Material
This concept treats concrete as an elastic material and is the most
common among engineers. Here, concrete is visualized as being
subjected to:
• Internal pre-stress (tensile stress developed in pre-tensioning)
• External loads
So long as there are no cracks in the section, the stresses, strains and
deflections of the concrete due to the two systems of forces can be
considered separately and superimposed if needed.
Due to a tensile pre-stressing force F, thee resulting stress at a section
is given below.
The concrete stress at a section due to pre-stress f is dependant only
on the magnitude and location of pre-stress at that section, ie., F and
e, regardless of how the tendon profile varies elsewhere along the
beam.
Example
A pre-stress concrete rectangular beam of size 500 mm x 750 mm has
a simple span of 7.3 m and is loaded with a udl of 45 kN/m including
its self-weight. An effective pre-stress of 1620 kN is produced.
Compute the fiber stresses in concrete at mid-span section.
Concrete Beams
DESIGN OF PSC MEMBERS
Sign Convention
In order to derive equations that enable design, we maintain a rigid
sign convention:
• Moment: Positive sag
• Eccentricity of prestress: positive above centroid
• Section Modulus: negative for the bottom of the member
• Stress: positive compression
With this sign convention, we now have:
Thus the final stresses are numerically given by:

Note that the sign convention means that:
• The 𝑃Τ𝐴 terms is always positive;
• The 𝑀𝑐 Τ𝑍 term is positive or negative depending on whether it is 𝑍𝑡
or 𝑍𝑏
• The 𝑃𝑒 Τ𝑍 term is negative for 𝑍𝑡 since 𝑍𝑡 is positive and e is negative
and the term is positive for 𝑍𝑏 since now both 𝑍𝑏 and e are negative.
These signs should of course match the above diagrams, as they

should.
Governing Inequalities
Given the rigid sign convention and the allowable stresses in the
concrete, and noting that the losses are to be taken into account, the
stresses are limited as:
1. Transfer
• Top fibre- stress must be bigger than the minimum allowable
tensile stress
• Bottom fibre- stress must be less than the maximum allowable
compressive stress:
2. Service
• Top fibre- stress must be less than the maximum allowable
compressive stress
• Bottom fibre- stress must be bigger than the minimum allowable
tensile stress
In these equations, it must be remembered that numerically, any

allowable tension is a negative quantity. Therefore all permissible
stresses must be greater than this allowable tension, that is, ideally
a positive number indicating the member is in compression at the
fibre under consideration. Similarly, all stresses must me less than
the allowable compressive stress.
Concrete Beams
MINIMUM SECTION MODULUS
Given a blank piece of paper, it is difficult to check stresses. Therefore,
we use the governing inequalities to help us calculate minimum
section moduli for the expected moments. This is the first step in the
PSC design process.
• Top Fibre
The top fibre stresses must meet the criteria of equations (1) and (3).
Hence, from equation (1):
If we now add this to equation (3):
Hence:
• Bottom Fibre
The bottom fibre stresses must meet equations (2) and (4). Thus, from
equation (2):
Adding equation (4) to this:
Hence:
Note that in these developments, the transfer moment is required.
However, this is a function of the self weight of the section which is
unknown at this point. Therefore a trial section or a reasonable self
weight must be assumed initially and then checked once a section has
been decided upon giving the actual 𝑍𝑡 and 𝑍𝑏 values.
Example

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Elastic Design of Prestressed

• Pre-stressing transforms concrete into an elastic material.

Thus the final stresses are numerically given by:

These signs should of course match the above diagrams, as they

In these equations, it must be remembered that numerically, any

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