CONCRETE TECHNOLOGY

STRESS-STRAIN RELATIONS
and ELASTIC CONSTANTS

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 STRESS-STRAIN RELATIONS AND
ELASTIC CONSTANTS

Concrete is not a truly elastic material. The nonlinearity

of the stress-strain curve is obvious even at the
origin. This fact creates certain problems in
determining the elastic constants for concrete.
Nevertheless, there are certain approximate methods
of determining these constants.

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DETERMINATION OF MODULUS OF ELASTICITY
Experimental methods;
(1) Initial Tangent Method: The slope of the tangent to the
curve at origin.
(2) Tangent Method: The slope of the tangent to the curve
at 15, 25, 35, or 50% of the ultimate strength.
(3) Secant Method: The slope of the secant drawn from the
origin to a point on the stress-strain curve corresponding
to 15, 25, 35, or 50% of the ultimate strength.
(4) Chord Method: The slope of the line between two
definite points eg. ε1=50x10-6 and σ2= 40% of the ultimate
strength.
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DETERMINATION OF MODULUS OF
ELASTICITY
In the ACI Building
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Code the relationship used is:
E  0.043 2  c MPa where,
E is the secant Modulus at ~ 40% of the ultimate strength in MPa;  is
the unit weight of concrete in kg/m3; and c is the compressive
strength of standard cylinder specimen in MPa.
In the British Code of Practice, Modulus of Elasticity is;
E  9.1 3  c GPa where,
c is the compressive strength of cube specimens.
CEB uses the following expression:
E  9.5 c  8 3 GPa where,
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c is the nominal design strength.

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OTHER ELASTIC CONSTANTS OF CONCRETE
Poisson's Ratio, , can be conveniently determined by direct
strain measurements in uniaxial compression. It generally falls
in the range of 0.15 to 0.20.
 lateral

 longitudinal

Shear Modulus, G, is not obtained by direct measurement.

Rather, it is calculated from the elastic relationship
E
G
21   

Bulk Modulus, K, is similarly determined by calculation:

E
K
6 31  2  
 EQUATIONS FOR ESTIMATING THE
STRESS-STRAIN CURVES
1. Woellmy Parabola:
   
  u  2  
 max   max 
where u is the ultimate strength
εmax : maximum strain
2. Smith - Young Equation:
  
  1
 


  u e  max 
 max

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EQUATIONS FOR ESTIMATING THE
STRESS-STRAIN CURVES
3. Desayi - Krishnan Equation: E
 2
 
1   
o 
where, εo is the strain corresponding to u,
E is the initial tangent modulus
For practical purposes, εo can be taken as 0.02% and εmax can be
calculated from
c
 max  0.0004 
6.5 x10 6
where, c is the ultimate strength in kgf/cm2
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EQUATIONS FOR ESTIMATING THE
STRESS-STRAIN CURVES
The relationship between axial, lateral and volumetric strains in
concrete under uniaxial compressive loading is given by the
following equation:
 v   a (1  2  )   a  2 l
where, εa , εl, and εv are axial, lateral and volumetric strains,
respectively.

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 Stress-strain relationship for concrete

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