Structural Design JPT refresher notes ( January 2006 – Engr.

Veronica Masangkay)

Bridge cap is the highest part of a bridge pier, on which the bridge bearings or rollers are seated. It may be of
stone, brick or plain or reinforced concrete, usually the last for heavy loads.
Joist a wood, steel, or pre-cast concrete beam directly supporting a floor. Usually wooden joist.
Live load load which may be removed or replaced on a structure, not necessarily a dynamic load excluding
wind and earthquake loads. Live loads are moving loads or movable loads.
Girder a large beam, originally of wood or iron, now usually of steel or concrete, though light alloys have
occasionally been used. Apart from the bowstring girder its chords are parallel.
Bending Moment - total bending effect at any section of a beam is called the bending moment. It is equal to the
algebraic sum of all the moments to the right of the section (or to the left of the section, which
amounts to the same thing) and is called M for short. Every bending moment can be expressed as a
force times a distance called the arm. units are pound-inches, ton-inches, kg-m, N-m, tonne-m, etc.
Aggregates gravel, sand, slag, crushed rock or similar inert materials which form a large part of concretes,
asphalts or roads including macadam.
Admixture in concrete or mortar, a substance other than aggregate, cement or water added in small quantity,
normally less than 5% of the weight of the cement, to alter the properties of the mix or the hardened
solid. Some 80% of the concrete made in North America, Australia, Japan and most of Europe
contains an admixture, and more than half contains air-entraining agent. Other admixtures are
accelerators, bonding admixtures, super plasticizers, water reducers, retarders, anti-freeze,
corrosion inhibitors, pore fillers and thickening agents. Shrinkage preventers, coloring (pigments),
damp-proofing, expanding, fungicidal, gas-forming, grouting and flocculating agents also exist. For
concretes with high cement needed to such an extent that the admixture pays for itself without harm
to the physical properties. But this saving probably never occurs with very lean concretes.
Accelerator an admixture which hastens the hardening rate and/or initial setting time of concrete. Calcium
chloride (CaCI2) was widely used, but because it can corrode embedded steel it is now banned in
the UK except in unreinforced concrete. Chloride-free accelerators that are safe with steel are based
on inorganic chemicals including formats, nitrates and thiocyanates. Sodium carbonate (washing
soda) can be used to make a flash set for quick repairs but It weakens the concrete.
Retarder an admixture which slows up the setting rate of concrete, sometimes applied to formwork so that
when it is stripped the cement paste which has been in contact with it can be removed by light
brushing. The rough texture thus formed may be needed for its visual appeal or to make a good
bond for plaster. Some retarders accelerate the initial set. This can be late as possible. An admixture
used in the USA in 1988, Delvo, made by Master Builders of Cleveland, Ohio, allows concrete to be
used even after several days. It must be added before the concrete is three hours old, but can be
added to concrete at up to 32.C. Ready-mix concrete makers use it.
Diaphragm in general a stiff plate or partition such as a bulk-head. The temporary wall built across each end of
each unit of an immersed tube to enable it to be floated into position and sunk next to its neighbor is
also a diaphragm. When the next unit is jacked up to it, the water in the space between the
diaphragms is pumped out and air is admitted. The force of the water then pushes the two units
more closely together and the diaphragms can be broken out without flooding the tube. In a hydro-
pneumatic accumulator, the diaphragm is flexible.
Boring making a hole in rock blasting, using a rotative or percussive drill.
Gusset plate piece of steel plate, usually roughly rectangular or triangular, w/c connects the members of a truss.
Punching Shear - When a heavily loaded column punches a hole through a base, the base is said to fail by
punching shear. Punching shear is prevented by thickening the base or enlarging the foot of the
column so that the shear stress (assumed uniform) round the perimeter of the column does not
exceed twice the allowable shear stress in concrete.
Seismograph an instrument at the ground surface which records the electrical effects transmitted to it by a
seismometer and thus shows the times and amplitudes of earth shocks.
Span the distance between the supports of a bridge, truss, arch, girder, floor, beam, etc.
Modulus of Elasticity - for any material the ratio of the stress (force per unit area) to the strain (deformation per unit
length). It is expressed in units of stress, and is usually constant up to the yield point. The values for
some common materials in GN/m2 are about as follows: steel 200; light alloys of aluminum, 69, of
magnesium, 45; green-heart, 23; Douglas fir, 11; English oak, 10; mostly softwoods about 12;
English ash and beech, 13; resin-bonded chipboard. or lightweight concretes (of density around 960
kg/m3) about 3.
Yield Point the stress at which noticeable, suddenly increased deformation occurs under slowly increasing load.
This occurs for mild steel at a stress slightly above the elastic limit. For light alloys, and for cold-
drawn or high-tensile steels, many of which do not have such a pronounced yield point as mild steel,
the 0.1 or 0.2% proof stress is taken as the yield point for estimating safe stresses.
Elastic Limit the stress beyond which further load causes permanent set. In most materials the elastic limit is also
the limit of proportionality.
Plastic limit the water content at the lower limit of the plastic state of a clay. It is the minimum water content at
which a soil can be rolled into a thread of 3 mm diameter without crumbling.
Force that which tends to accelerate a body. or to change its movement; for example, the weight of a body
is a force which tends to move it downwards.
Deflection the elastic movement of loaded parts of a structure. The word often refers to the sinking of the mid-
span of a beam which in British housing generally is not allowed to exceed 1/325 of the span.
Shear the load acting across a bean near its support. For a uniformly distributed load or for any other
symmetrical load, the maximum shear is equal to half the total load on a simply supported beam, or
to the total load on a cantilever beam.
Stress the force on a member divided by the area which carries the force, formerly expressed in psi, now in
N/mm2, MPa, etc.
Strain a change in length caused usually by a force applied to a piece, the change being expressed as a
ratio, the increase or decrease divided by the original length.
Shear Wall a core wall.
Slump Test a test for the stiffness of wet concrete. A conical mold is filled with concrete, well rammed, and then
carefully inverted and emptied over a flat plate. The amount by which the concrete cone drops below
the top of the mold is measured and is called the slump. This test is valuable only when the
aggregates are used all the time and in the same proportions. It then gives a rough idea if the water
content of the mix. This otherwise most useful test cannot be applied to stiff concretes with slump of
less than about 20 mm.
Spiral Reinforcement - steel bar wound continuously round the main bars of a cylindrical concrete column or pile
instead of links.
Beam a structural member designed to resist loads which bend it. The bending effect at any point in a
beam is found by calculating the bending moment. Beams are usually of wood, steel, light alloy, or
reinforced or pre-stressed concrete.
Column a post carrying compressive force.
Fixed-End Moment - the bending moment at the support of a beam required to fix it in such a way that it cannot
rotate, so that it has a fixed end.
Contraction Joint - in concrete work, a break in a structure made to allow for the drying and temperature shrinkages
(of concrete or masonry) thus to prevent cracks forming at undesirable places. Since all materials
containing cement' shrink appreciably on drying, contraction joints are needed in every long
structure.
Tendon a pre-stressing bar, cable, rope, strand or wire.
Grade Beam the US term for ground beam
Pre-tensioning - concrete members are pre-cast, in a works, with the tensioned wires embedded in them. The wires
are anchored either against the molds or against permanent abutments in the ground. After
hardening, the concrete is released from the mold and the wires are cut at the anchorage. This
method may give a larger loss of pre-stress than with post-tensioning but is usually economical for
small members and may produce better concrete since it is always factory controlled. In long-line
pre-stressing, used for the pre-casting of pre-tensioned floor slabs or beams, the casting bed may be
as much as 180 m long; enabling units may be 1.2 m, and their thickness 15, 20 or 25 em. They
usually have tubular voids running down the length and occupying about 30% of the cross-section.
Pre-cast Concrete - concrete beams, columns, lintels, piles, and parts of walls and floors which are cast and partly
matured on the site or in a factory before being lifted into their position in a structure. Where many of
the same unit are required, pre-casting may be more economical than casting in place, may give a
better surface finish, reduce shrinkage of the concrete on the site, and make stronger concrete.
Earthquake sinking of part of the earth's surface along a fault plane, Le. a crack in the earth's crust.
Seismometer either a geophone, used in seismic prospecting, or a device for detecting earthquake shocks. An
early seismometer made in Japan about AD 136 consisted of balls dropping from a dragon's mouth
into a frog's to show the direction of the shock.
Slag the waste glass-like product from a metallurgical furnace. which flows off above the metal. The slags
most used in building and civil engineering in Britain are blast-furnace slags (B).
Mortar a paste of cement, sand and water laid between bricks, blocks or stones, and usually now made with
masonry cement, formerly with cement and lime putty. Cement paste can be regarded as the mortar
of concrete.
Embedment Length - ACI term for grip length.
Dead Load the weight of a structure and any permanent loads fixed on it.
Creep gradually increasing permanent deformation of a material under stress, well known in metals as high-
temperature creep.
Base the base course of a road.
Slenderness Ratio - the effective height of a column divided by its radius of gyration, the value Ilk In the formula for
the Euler crippling stress.
Resilience the strain energy stored in an elastic material per unit of volume. The modulus of resilience is the
greatest quantity of energy per unit volume which can be stored in a material without permanent set.
Steel can store 0.027 kg-m/cm3, rubber about 0.54 kg-m/cm3.
Ductility the ability of a metal to undergo cold plastic deformation without breaking, particularly by pulling in
cold drawing.
Modulus of Rigidity - the ratio of the shear stress to the shear strain in a material.
Modulus of Rupture - the breaking stress of a cast-iron, wooden or mass concrete rectangular beam, calculated on
the assumptions that the tensile strains in the beam are equal distances from the neutral axis.
Stirrup a link
Tie A link around the main steel in a concrete column, beam or pile.
Batter Pile a pile (usually driven not bored) at an angle to the vertical.
Footing a widening of any structure at the foot to improve its stability, in breakwaters, earth or other dams, or
simple walls.
Web the vertical plate joining the flanges of any beam or rail, of whatever material.
Fillet Weld a weld of roughly triangular cross-section between two pieces at right angles.
Bench mark a relatively fixed point whose level is known and used as a datum for leveling.
Deck a flat roof or a quay, jetty or bridge floor, generally a floor with no roof over.
Strut a long column, usually of wood or metal, not necessarily vertical.
Poisson's Ratio - for elastic materials strained by a force in one direction, there will be a corresponding strain in all
directions perpendicular to this, equal to p times the strain in the direction of the force.

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