Module 4D8

Prestressed Concrete
Lent Term 2010

Lecture 5 – Steel and Ultimate

strength

Prestressing steel
• The ultimate strength of a beam
depends on the strength of the
tendon
• The strength depends on the material
properties
• The material properties depend on the
production process

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 Steel strand
Prestressing steel strand has to be both strong Austenite
and ductile High quality control needed
Pearlite (0.85-0.9% Iron-Carbon Phase Diagram
carbon) is a mixture of soft
but ductile ferrite (very little
carbon) with cementite
(about 1.7% carbon)

Small amounts of silicon

and manganese added

Ferrite Pearlite

• Steel wire produced by rolling from billet

• Crystal structure adjusted by patenting
• heating then cooling quickly to 450 C
• hold this temperature until pearlite formed
• Chemically pickled to clean surface
• Wire drawn through dies to reduce area and
increase strength
• Residual stresses removed by stress-relieving
(heating)
• If stress-relieved under tension, low-relaxation
wire is produced
• 7-wires twisted to give strand and drawn again to
form Dy-Form strand

2
 Prestressing rod
• Different chemical composition and
produced by rolling rather than
drawing

• Gives little increase in strength

Strength and stiffness

• Steel strand has strength ~1800 MPa
• Steel rod has strength ~1000 MPa
• Young’s Modulus not affected by
production process
• Strand does not reach yield strength until
about 1% strain
• Prestress typically ~800 MPa, so pre-strain
~0.4%
• So 0.6% strain between pre-strain and yield

3
 Stress Strain curves
• Note lack of
well-defined
yield point

Typical design curve

Stress BS8110 fy = 1752 MPa; γm=1.15
fy/γm

0.8fy/γm

(Use this for

examples sheets)

E E = 200 GPa
.005 Strain

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 Compare Rebar
• Rebar has typical strength about
500 MPa
• No pre-strain
• About 0.25% strain up to yield
• Rebar shows sharp yield point

Variation of concrete quality

Stronger concretes are
stiffer and have lower
strain capacities than
weaker concretes

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 Balanced strain diagrams
RC PSC
.0035 .002

.0025 .006

In RC the steel is normally yielding at ultimate load

In PSC the steel may not be yielding

RC at Ult Load
• Steel is yielding
• Steel is usually in one layer
• No prestrain
• One type of steel
So analysis is straightforward
application of axial force and moment
equilibrium

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 PSC at Ultimate Load
• Steel may not be at yield, so stress
not known
• Often many tendons at different
locations
• There may be untensioned
reinforcement of different type
• Tendons may be unbonded
• Cannot produce simple equations

Concrete σ - ε

Concrete stress-strain
curve is non-linear

Tests are length

dependent

Post-peak behaviour
depends on extension
not strain

True behaviour complex

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 General problem
How can we analyse a beam under a
general loading with nonlinear stress-
strain behaviour?

Specific problem
How can we find the ultimate moment in
a beam under with nonlinear stress-
strain behaviour?

General Problem
What do we know?
We know that the strain diagram varies linearly

But we don’t know … or the

the axial strain … curvature

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 Need to define two variables to define strain variation
Usually convenient for one to be strain in most compressed fibre

Neutral
axis
position
Strain at a
tendon position

Tensile fibre
strain

Many options for the other

For any particular strain variation

Use stress-strain curves to calculate:-

Stresses in Stresses in
tendons concrete

Strain

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 Strain Stress

Stresses in section must be in force and moment

equilibrium with external stress resultants

Cannot use exhaustive search – use 2-D Newton-Raphson

to find the two strain parameters that satisfy equilibrium

Simpler problems
e.g. Fix curvature and vary axial strain until no axial
force – then calculate applied moment

Allows calculation of complete moment-curvature response

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 for a study on ductility

Loading and
unloading curves
for rectangular
beam prestressed
with steel

CEB-FIP code curve

for concrete with
elastic unloading

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 Ultimate moment
Section normally fails when most extreme concrete
fibre crushes at some specified strain
For normal strength concretes usually 0.0035 but for
higher strength concrete it can be lower

Fixed
Varies

Vary neutral axis until axial equilibrium satisfied, then find moment

Effect of prestress?
• What is the effect of the initial prestress
(prestrain) on the behaviour at the ultimate
load?
• Effect on concrete is negligible – prestrain
~0.0003 – makes very little difference to
stresses at failure
• But steel prestrain 0.004 – 0.005; makes
large difference to position on stress-strain
curve – must be allowed for

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Strain in the tendon for a given concrete strain at failure?
When prestressed the concrete next to tendon goes into
compression εe , and the tendon goes into tension εpe
The tendon and the concrete are then joined together by
bond, so subsequent strains affect both materials equally
At failure, concrete at limiting strain εcu , and neutral axis is
at depth x ; next to tendon, concrete strain is εu
εcu
x Change in strain in
d concrete next to tendon is
εu εe
(d − x)
εe + εu = εe + ε cu
x

Total tendon strain

Total tendon strain εpb is:-

Strain that was present before concrete bonded to tendon εpe

plus, change in strain in adjacent concrete εe + εu , so

(d − x)
ε pb = ε pe + ε e + ε cu
x

Then find stress in tendon σpb from stress-strain curve

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 Unbonded?
• If tendon is unbonded, then it is only
attached to the concrete at the ends
• Compatibility of strains is not satisfied
locally
• Compatibility of extensions is satisfied
globally
• Local tendon strain will be less than
local concrete strain by some factor β

Uncracked unbonded
Integral of strain over length same for steel and concrete

β will be
about 0.5

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 Cracked unbonded
Strain in concrete concentrated at cracks/hinges

β now much
smaller;

~0.1 for
localised hinges

~0.25 for
extended
cracking

Steel strain εpb

(d − x)
ε pb = ε pe + β1ε e + β 2 ε cu
x
Bonded beams β1 = β2 = 1.0

Unbonded beams β1 = 0.5; β2 = 0.1 – 0.25

So in unbonded beams, tendon stress does not alter much

Some codes require additional untensioned reinforcment

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Strain concentration at cracks?
Analysis so far assumes that plane sections remain plane,
so we were able to draw a linear strain variation that
applied to both steel and concrete

This is equivalent to assuming a concrete strain that is

averaged over both cracks and uncracked concrete

Actual peak steel strain will be higher than the calculated

value, due to strain concentration at cracks

Should be
conservative,
since the actual
steel stress at
failure will be
higher, so actual
moment capacity
will be greater
than the
calculated value

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 Limited ductility?
Prestressing steels have less ductility (~3.5%) than
reinforcing steels (~10%)

Strain concentration factor difficult to determine since it

depends on bond strength and many local factors but
may be expected to be >2
Prestrain ~0.5% and additional strains usually > 0.5%

Most codes put a limit on the additional strain (after

prestress) of 1%

(d − x)
So:-
β1ε e + β 2 ε cu ≤ 0.01
x
x 1
But β1εe usually negligible, so ≥
d 0.01
+1
β 2ε cu
x
If εcu = 0.0035 and β1 = 1.0 ≥ 0.26
d
This gives an upper limit on the allowable ductility of
a section, which is unusual. But tendon failure would
be catastrophic

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1. Most codes require
an analysis with a
specified value of
limiting concrete
strain, typically 0.0035
2. If this causes additional steel
strain > 1%, repeat, this time fixing
the steel strain and varying
concrete strain.
Results in lower moment capacity

Equivalent stress block

k2x
Acomp x
k1fcuAcomp

Actual Simplified
If you need only the ultimate moment, and the section is rectangular in
the compression zone, then most codes allow the use of a simplified
stress-block in compression
Tests give Codes typically are conservative
k1 = 0.45; k2 = 0.4 k1 = 0.4 – 0.425; k2 = 0.45 – 0.5

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 500 Example
800 Tendon area = 2500 mm2 (0.5%)
εe = 0.00026
1000 Prestress = 800 MPa
εpe = 0.004
fcu = 45 MPa
Ec = 32 GPa
k1 = 0.4 k2 = 0.5
BS8110 σ-ε with fy 1752 MPa
18 MPa
Iteration 1 2 3 final
368
x (mm) 500 250 419 368
lever
εu .0021 .0077 .00317 .00411
arm
εpb .00636 .01196 .00743 .00837 616

σpb (MPa) 1231 1493 1282 1325 3312

T (kN) 3078 3731 3205 3312
C (kN) 4500 2250 3771 3312 M = 3312*616
= 2040 kNm

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