THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

CEE 9628b Prestressed Concrete (Assignment # 3 – Due February 25, 2011)

Dr. Maged A. Youssef, P.Eng. Page: 1

If you consider that there is missing information, you are urged to make a reasonable assumption and
submit a clear statement of this assumption.

Problem 1:

A rectangular pretensioned beam, Fig. 1, contains low relaxation steel (fpu=1860 MPa) whose stress-
strain response is given by equation (1). The strands were pretensioned to 1300 MPa prior to casting
the concrete.
⎡ ⎤
⎢ ⎥
⎢ 0.975 ⎥
⎢
f p = 200000 ⋅ ε pf ⋅ 0.025 + ⎥ ≤ 1860 MPa (1)
⎢ ⎡ 10 ⎤
0.10
⎥
⎢
⎢
( )
⎢1+ 118⋅ε pf ⎥ ⎥
⎥
⎣ ⎢⎣ ⎥⎦ ⎦

1) The flexural capacity of a prestressed concrete beam using the Canadian approach (A23.3-04) is
based on assuming a maximum concrete compressive concrete strain of 0.0035 and making an
estimate of the stress in the prestressing steel. Prepare a plot, which relates the stress in the
strand (fpr) at flexural failure as defined by the Canadian code to the reinforcing index
A ⋅f
w = P pu' . (Hint: assume a value for fpr and find the corresponding w)
b ⋅ d ⋅ fc
2) If a beam contains a very small amount of reinforcement, it may have a brittle failure as soon as
the first crack forms. By equating the flexural capacity to the cracking load, determine the
reinforcement ratio ρp below which such a brittle failure will occur (fc’ = 35 MPa, d/h =0.8).
d
h

Ap

b
Fig. 1 Rectangular Pretensioned Beam