RECTANGULAR COLUMN - ULS

1 - Start XLSection1.exe and login to use the license.

2 - Define the problem as a rectangular cross section. See description below.

Materials:

fcd = 23.0 MPa,

fsyd = 435 MPa

Cover:

distance from rebar center to edge = 5.0 cm

3 - In the INPUT Worksheet you will define the cross section in several steps.
4 - Define the material for concrete:
Concrete

fcd (Mpa) or 0.85 fcd (Mpa)

23

Notice as here you will define the design compression stress for concrete, that can be either
fcd or 0.85 fcd, depending of the design code you are using. In this case, we will assume 1.0
fcd for EC2.

5 - Define the number of rebar reinforcement layers.

Nr of Rebar Layers
Nr of Prestress Cables

Reinforcement

4
0

Instead of using individual rebars and rebar locations, you can use linear segments or layers
that represent some distributed rebar with a total absolute area per segment.
In this case we have clearly 4 layers of rebars. Bottom, top, left and right. At this point we will only
define that we have 4 layers. We do not have any prestress cable in this example.
6 - Define the concrete contour geometry. There are a set of rules to define concrete contours.
- The contour is defined by a ordered set of points;
- Each point is defined by a pair of coordinates x and y (*);
- The last point must be equal to the first point;
- The cross section must be always defined in a clockwise direction;
- If you have one hole or multiple holes, you must make the contour of the holes
part of the contour of the main section, but with the following rules:
- When defining a hole A, you must choose an arbitrary point P1 to get
out of the main contour and start with any point P2 of the hole;
- the contour of the hole must be defined in a counter-clockwise
direction;
- when leaving the hole A, you must return to point P2 of the hole
and immediately return to point P1 of the main contour ;
(*) the coordinate referential must be as pictured below:

In this case we only have 4 points, corresponding to the 4 corners of the cross section, and so, the
representation in the INPUT Worksheet uses only 5 points, as the first and last must be repeated.

q =

0
Concrete

xi ( m )
yi ( m )

0
0

0
0.5

0.3
0.5

0.3
0

0
0

Notice that the coordinates only have relative meaning. You do not have to define the referential in
any special point like the gravity center.
Note: The angle represented here is only used when you want to draw the cross section with a certain
angle.

7 - Define the rebar layers. As seen before we already know we have 4 layers of rebars.
For the definition of rebar Layers there are 2 major things you must understand:

- (a) Different ways to decide how to create rebar layers.

Regarding the rebar layer possibilities, the main options are pictured below.

In all the 4 situation, different values of rebar area must be taken for the correspondent layers.
Option 4 is the most realistic one, but the least practical. It will force you to define very small segments
and each one will have the area of each rebar. Option 2, given our real distribution, is the one that
presents the best balance between practicality and accuracy.
In our case, taking option 2, the lower and top layers will have 4 rebars of 20 mm with a total area of
12.57 cm2 for each one, and the lateral layers, with 5 rebars of 12 mm, will have each a total area of
5.65 cm2.
Defining the layers in the INPUT Spreadsheet is done as pictured below:

Reinforcement

Rebars

As ( cm2 )

12.57

12.57

5.65

5.65

fsy, d (Mpa)

435

435

435

435

xi ( m )
yi ( m )
xj ( m )
yj ( m )
As ( cm2 )

0.05
0.05
0.25
0.05

0.05
0.45
0.25
0.45

0.05
0.11
0.05
0.39

0.25
0.11
0.25
0.39

fspyd (Mpa)

Prestress
Cables

Esp (Gpa )
DY (m)
X (m)
Y (m)
Pinf (kN)

- (b)The rules you must follow if you do want to calculate a biaxial bending curve.

The other important aspect, that may restrain your ability to freely create rebar layers is the situation
where you do calculate biaxial bending curves.
In this case, because the neutral axis will rotate 360 degrees during the whole process, you must make
sure that in any of those situations, you will have a valid distance from the most tensioned rebar layer
to the opposite extreme concrete edge or vertice.
If you define only one rebar layer, you may have problems during the biaxal curve calculation. For
some cases of neutral axis rotation, there will be no problem, as we will be in the following situation:

But for other situation, having just one rebar cal lead to the following problem:

In this situation, because there are no rebars in the place that should be used for tensile resistance, the
cross section will only work between the rebar and the concrete cover. this will lead to strange
results. Please avoid this situation.

8 - You can now save, load and draw the cross section using the following part of the INPUT Spreadsheet:
Open Cross Section

Save Cross Section

Input FOLDER
Input FILE

Draw Cross Section

D:\DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCES\FENDSEC
RectangularColumn

Area
Inertia X
Inertia Y
Inertia Product
Radius of Gyration X
Radius of Gyration Y
Pricipal Axis Angle
Inertia Max
Inertia Min
Polar Moment of Inertia
Center of Gravity X
Center of Gravity Y

0.15000000
0.00312500
0.00112500
0.00000000
0.14433757
0.08660254
0.00000000
0.00312500
0.00112500
0.00425000
0.15000000
0.25000000

Homogenization Coeficient
6
Homogenized Area
0.17708400
Homogenized Inertia X
0.00380675
Homogenized Inertia Y
0.00129527

As you can see, you will have a list of properties, that will be calculated whenever you press the button
Draw Cross Section. By doing it, you will also view the Spreadsheet CROSS SECTION VIEW, where you
can verify visually the define cross section.

Cross Section
0.3

0.2

0.1

-0.2

-0.1

0.0

-0.1

-0.2

-0.3

0.0

0.1

0.2

9 - Moment-Axial ULS ( Ultimate Limit States) resistance. View the ELU M-N Curves
Spreadsheet.

Here you can calculate the P-M curves or N-M curves ( Axial force vs Moment ) for a give rotation of
the neutral axis. Use the button below and the angle definition in degrees, to draw your chart.

Notice that the angle represents the rotation of the cross section, and so, it works as if you are rotating
the neutral axis the negative value of the defined angle.

If we try a different angle like 45 we will get the following chart:

In this case the cross section rotated 45 degrees, the neutral axis, -45 degrees, and the axis Mx and My
can be seen in the picture below. It is also described the analogy between the XLSection axis and
SAP2000 axis, for easy interoperability between the 2 applications. We can clearly see now that the
My is not zero anymore, because there is no symmetry around the perpendicular axis to the neutral
axis.

After having calculated the Axial-Moment curves, you may use the Intepolate button to calculate the
Mx and My resisting moments for a given N.

Interpolate

N
0
MX 296.723
MY 89.6887

10 - Biaxial bending ULS ( Ultimate Limit States) MX-My resistance curves. View the ELU M-N Curves
Spreadsheet.
In this case you will want to create a Mx-My Curve , that corresponds to a certain N,Rd. To do so, you
will in fact use the feature described in the point 9, where you learned how to create N-Mx,My curves.
The difference is that in this case, the application will do it repeatedly and assemble a list of results
used to create the chart.
Biaxial Curve

step

10

P-M Curve

q=

45

Interpolate

N
0
MX 296.723
MY 89.6887

First, define the level of axial force in the N field. ( negative for compression and positive for tension )
Define the step in degrees that you want the range of 0-360 to be covered in terms of neutral axis
rotations. Use the step field below the Biaxial Curve button.
Finally press the Biaxial Curve button to create the desired curve.
Here is an example of the plot for this cross section and for N=0 kN

This concludes this tutorial...