CODES AND STANDARDS | spssesoie sie Cracking Moment and Safety of Post-Tensioned Members By Bijan O. Aalami, Ph.D. SE, CEng hen major building codes are notin agreement on specific steuctural members, conf sion and uncertainty are propagated among design engineers. In this case, the industry may need to starta conver sation with code authorities for clarification, Three issues specific ro the design of post tensioned members are currently treated differently by the American Concrete Insticute’s Building Code Requirements for Structural Concrete and Commentary, ACT- 318 (2014), and Europe's Design of Structures Part 1-1 General rules and rales for buildings, European Code EC2 (2004) For any designer working globally, chese 1wo code documents define the design of post tensioned members. Also, the go-to literature forthe design and analysis of PT members is contradictory. The three sources considered here are the Post-Tensioning Instiute’s Design ‘Manual (2000) and ewo design treatise, one by E.G, Nawy and one by the author ofthis article (See he rfeences included in the ankine sersion of tis article for specif.) The discrepancies are found with regard to 1) “The vakeof he bending moment ax which asetion must be reinforced beset dhe inva of cracking. This is ypcally referred wo asthe “cracking moment” of the section, My 2) Whether the provision for safety at the initiation of cracking due to the bending moment applies to members reinforced with bonded, unbonded, or both bonded and unbonded post- 3) Which striatal systems the provision applies to— beams, one-way abs, eso way dabs, orall truer ystems. Given the increasing popularity of post-en- sioned buildings worldwide, it seems logical that an effort should be made to standardize these design criteria Value of the Cracking Moment The cracking moment of a post-tensioned member is of incerest to structural engineers for ewo reasons. First, depending on che application, cracking may need to bellimited for serviceability concerns. In these cases, the objective is to avoid the “initiation” of cracking. The second reason is the “safery” ‘of the member; in these cases, the aim is to censure that che section at the location where the crack forms has adequate strength co avoid failure, ierespective ofthe cause of the crack. The serviceability objective is achieved by controlling the conditions that lead co cracking, The focus of the oo major build ing codes, ACI 318 and the European Code € cracking occuss. The following sections explain both the C2), is about the safety of the member if safety and serviceability objectives and include applicable expressions for the cal- culation of the cracking moment. Service Condition Gadaapercsemantegastaaiirsnans Bir and pcan lie wets site madhnof supe ff he oot me LACLEIS stomtocade ur loveseat be calcula anf 75 Cneion 1) ‘Wen comtngthecorton threads poor ge. pettrnclas rents ihn a pee a tr aengiend ae barat dlaalon secant Ape ids preepesion nm se tone Socata is sot dle ao Beret de esettning teen Where fi=MyI5.— Epuation th ection modulus My blo fd tas the i dnigad ovecxtlnpcege Sedat Unmagiuieeldedages onde ene ac app condos of he sel er pid oe edo fre. acide bec pay moment (7) and the hypersade (cond momen om te nace ar he sper saelf dpe ntoning peggy ra ‘endonsat the sction provide applied fares on the member mas exceed the combined extreme fiber compresive ‘esses om the prowesing, and PA. to princpley of tae equlivium ill be Meta Biss Aly Egmetn 9 STRUCTURE magazine a October 2016 Figure 1a. Partial elevation; continuous member reinforced with pose tensioning ire leading 0 cracking at action XX depend on the overall _grmetry ofthe entre strectre feature of ts pes temoning tendon and the applied lod (PTS798) ‘ E = un ™ 0 @ i Figure 1b, Disribution of tres fm pot tensioning ona section. DA isthe avenge _precimpresion: is the extreme fiber res from ost tnsioning moment, Moy Pi he post ‘ersioning force aa i he ecennicity ofthe foce twit respect othe tion contra. Safety Condition The second area of interest relative to the erack- ing momen is the “safety” of the member: Unlike serviceability which is concerned with the member before cracking, the saery objec tive requires consideration of the relevant section after cracking. In the cae of cracking having occured, the objective sto ensure that the section at the location where the crack forms has adequace strength to avoid failure, irrespective of the cause ofthe cracking, Although the focus of ACI 318 and European ‘Code EC2 ison the serviceability fcrors, both codes include text on the safety requirement after cracking: however, neither provides details ‘on the roquired calculations. Alo, the ropicis addressed differently inthe publications above. The safety ofa section after the initiation of cracking is achieved by providing adequate reinforcement. The reinforcement should develop a moment notless than the moment that initiated cracking, At cracking, the distri- bution of stresses over the section is as shown in Figure 1 (jt), icespective of the overall characteristics of the member, such as the number of spansor the loads on the member,Figure 2. Two-way slab contruction with unbonded and bonded pos- tensioning tendon (a) lab ‘omruction with unbonded tendons. Neither ACT nor EC2 require a strengh check atthe iitaton of eracing (P998). (6) Sle consracton with bonded tendons ACI reguire a sent check at te iniiaion of racking. EC2 door no (7999) ‘The moment for this distribution, M, is Mya (f+ PIA)S (Equation 4 The difference beoween the numerical valu of the two conditions, service, and safe is thac the service condition includes the post- tensioning moment My. with the hypersatic {also referred co as secondary) momentsasan incegral parc of it. The applicable moment 1M, for the safety condition includes only the precompression (2A) from prestressing. Insummary, to avoid failure fa section atthe ication of cracking the weinforcementin the section must develop a moment capacity Ma not less than the moment Mf, that initiated the crack, Factors of safety must be applied both to duce M, and increase M,, K, the factor of safety for M, depends on the building code; ACI 318 recommends asafery factor of 1.2. M2 KM, (Equation 5) ‘Where, #is the stength reduction facto ‘A posible source of discrepancy between the calculations forthe two conditions could be the interpretation of the wording used in ACI 318-14, where the requirement is expressed in terms of “racking load," as opposed to cracking ‘moment. The European Code EC2 seates the ‘requirement in erm of the “racking moment” Evaluation of the Cracking Moment ACI 318-14 requires che evaluation of the cracking moment for slabs reinforced wich bonded tendons (Figure 26) ~ both one- way and ewo-way systems, using a factor of safety K=1.2. Evaluation of the cracking ‘moment is nor required for slabs reinforced with unbonded tendons based on the argu- men chat, because there isno bond between the strands and the concrete, a sudden local increase in strain a the erack location will be dlstibuced over a length of strand crossing the crack, thus avoiding a local rise in stand strain and che strand’s rupture (Figure 22). The European Code EC2 also requires an evaluation ofthe cracking moment, but only for beams reinforced with wnbonded tendons er EC2, a safety factor of 1.15 is required. ACI 318-14 requires the same with a factor of 1.2 for beams reinforced with bonded tendons. Clearly, there is adisagreemenc as o whether ‘0 apply safery factor to unbonded or bonded tendons or do designers assume tha the safety factor applies to both conditions? Note that the distribution of moment in bbeam stems and one-way slabs is essentially uniform in the tansvers direction to the spa. Initiation of cracking atone point wil result the extension of the crack over the endre ‘width of che beam stem or shb width. For ‘ovo-way, column-supported slabs, however, due wo the non-uniform distribution of stres. (Figure 3), loss of capacity due to cracking at the location of maximum moment demand. will esule in a redistribution of the moment ‘0 regions where capacity is available, thus providing greater resilience for two-way slab systems. The moment redistribution property ofthe two-way system i the likely reason why inthe European code itis no required to check. its safery atthe initiation of racking Literature Discrepancies ACI 318-14 applies only to tew-way slabs reinforced with bonded post-tensioning: 8.6.2.2.2~ For sab with bonded prsresed reinforcement, otal quantity ofA, and Ay shall be adequate to develop a factored load at least 1.2 times the cracking load ealeated an the bass off defined in 19.2.3 (Note: the value of fas defined in section 19.23, is given in Equation | above.) EC2 (European Cock) applies only co Beams. EN 1992-1-1:2004, Section 9.2.1-1(4) sates: Far members prestresed with permanently sunbonded tendons ar with external pre- sresing cables, it should be verified that she nbiimate bending capacity is lager than the flecural cracking moment. A capacity 1.15 times the enacking moment is sufficient The PTI Design Manual Fifth S 5.335, explains the application of the ACL STRUCTURE magazine a Cciober 2016 Figure 3. Plan ~ Bibutary (design wip) of a colton ruppotin teow la contruction, Ditribation of moment atthe face of column before and afer aching. Lost of capacity de to the aching spreads te cracking and mobiles the ab’ seventh beyond the colar (PTS761) 318% statement for strength calculation of members afer cracking as follows: the requirement is intended to prevent cebrupeflecur fete immediately afer rack- ing... Tis requirements commonly satisfied, twhen required, ar exch etion a follows $M, AT SNFS+ SEs My) G-1) This is the same as expression Equation 3 above, with the safety factor (1.2) recom- mended by ACI 318 added, and Musused co represent the post-tensioning moment My and Fis the posttensioning force. PTT's expression (3-1) is also used fre- quently in the literature for the safety of section after cracking. Conclusions In addition to the differences in the litera- cre on the calculation of the demand forces forthe safety ofa section at the initiation of cracking, the requirements as to when the cracking moment needs (0 be evaluated co ‘erty the safety are different in ACI 318 and. EC2, Observation of thousands of buildings, designed aceording to cach ofthese codes, and the apparent lack of reported failure resulting from these provisions, could imply that the requirement may not be critical in the design of post-tensioned members. Bus, if chey are not of critical concem, why are they decailed in the codes? However, in light ofthe increas- ing popularity of buildings constructed with postensioning, the safety requirements of posttensioned members at the initiation of cracking should be revisited and claifed.* bijant daptsoft.com ‘The online version of ths article contains detailed references. Please vist soww.STRUCTUREmag.org.