International Concrete Abstracts Portal

The long-term camber prediction under sustained loads is an important part of the design of pretensioned flexural members. Critical members are noncomposite roofs and bridge members which have medium or large span-depth ratios or elements made of lightweight concrete. Currently the most common approximate design method is one that relies on empirical multipliers applied to initial cambers and deflections. When compared to a rational approach, substantial differences in prediction of long-term camber or deflection are noticed. The approximate method appears to overestimate the permanent sag or underestimate the camber. It also does not consider certain creep, shrinkage, and relaxation properties. It is concluded that such methods may be unreliable for critical members and that the rational method is preferred. For preliminary design of longer spans, revised multipliers are suggested for use with the approximate method.

Pressurized water reactor containment building structures in nuclear power plants are designed to withstand internal accident pressure. Prestressed concrete is commonly used to resist such a pressure. The structure must maintain its structural integrity for the service life of the plant; therefore, the design must consider the effect of creep and shrinkage of concrete on the prestressing system. This effect is mainly in the form of prestressing force losses over time. Since creep and shrinkage are time-dependent, their values at any point in time during the service life of the plant must be predicted. The approach utilized in the design of the prestressed containment structure and the required periodic inspection are described. Also addressed is the procedure for establishing predicted changes in the prestressing forces as a result of creep and shrinkage of concrete at any point in time. Comparisons between predicted values and actual measurements of prestressing forces at different time intervals are presented. The comparison includes a number of reactor containment buildings and different concrete proportions.

A step-by-step procedure is used for computing the state of stress in a prestressed concrete cylinder pipe accounting for the effects of creep and shrinkage of concrete core and mortar coating and of wire relaxation. The procedure is applied to an embedded-cylinder pipe subjected to the outdoor environment and to that of a buried pipe with varying humidity conditions. The results show that for pipe exposed to the outdoor environment, the prestress in the inner and the outer cores of embedded-cylinder pipe are significantly different. However, the change in the environment resulting from burial of the pipe and filling it with water reduces the losses, and the difference in the prestress of the inner and the outer core of embedded-cylinder pipe.

SP-129 With today's powerful computers and sophisticated testing methods, new formulation for predicting the structural response of concrete structures to creep and shrinkage of concrete are emerging. Actual structural behavior can now be predicted by mathematical modeling of material behavior. This special publication provides the means for better understanding the important creep and shrinkage characteristics of concrete. Ten papers cover a variety of topics including the theoretical and experimental parts of the long-term behavior of a railway bridge, results for creep in reinforced and prestressed concrete columns, long-term behavior of prestressed concrete beams, evaluation of creep and shrinkage deflection of reinforced concrete members, the rational and approximate methods for time-dependent deflection of prestressed concrete members, predicting and testing for creep and shrinkage, computing stress and strain, and time-dependent analysis for partially prestressed composite members.

The first stage of an experimental investigation into the instantaneous and time-dependent behavior of reinforced concrete columns under sustained load is reported. The experimental work described in the paper involves the testing of 15 large-scale columns in compression and uniaxial bending to obtain comprehensive creep deformation data for the prediction of long-term lateral deflection and instability. Information on the range of slenderness ratios and load levels which cause creep instability for rectangular symmetrically reinforced concrete columns is of particular interest. The experimental data is also for use in the development and calibration of a theoretical model for the prediction of creep deflection and buckling under sustained load. The experimental setup used in this investigation and described in the paper is designed for the simultaneous testing of five slender columns, each up to 6 m in length. The loading frame is such that each column may have different length, different cross-sectional dimensions and reinforcement details, and be subjected to different combinations of axial force and bending moment. In the three series of tests presented here, column length, axial force, and initial eccentricity are the major variables. The loading on each column is monitored independently and maintained automatically at a constant preset value throughout each test. A direct comparison of creep effects on column behavior is therefore possible as different loading parameters are varied.