Direct design of partially prestressed concrete solid beams

Tests were conducted on two partially pre-stressed concrete solid beams subjected to combined loading of bending, shear and torsion. The beams were designed using the Direct Design Method which is based on the Lower Bound Theorem of the Theory of Plasticity. Both beams were of 300 × 300 mm cross-section and 3.8 m length. The two main variables studied were the ratio of the maximum shear stress due to the twisting moment, to the shear stress arising from the shear force, which was varied between 0.69 and 3.04, and the ratio of the maximum twisting moment to the maximum bending moment which was varied between 0.26 and 1.19. The required reinforcement from the Direct Design Method was compared with requirements from the ACI and the BSI codes. It was found that, in the case of bending dominance, the required longitudinal reinforcements from all methods were close to each other while the BSI required much larger transverse reinforcement. In the case of torsion dominance, the BSI method required much larger longitudinal and transverse reinforcement than the both the ACI and the DDM methods. The difference in the transverse reinforcement is more pronounce. Experimental investigation showed good agreement between design and experimental failure loads of the beams designed using the Direct Design Method. Both beams failed within an acceptable range of the design loads and underwent ductile behaviour up to failure. The results indicate that the Direct Design Method can be successfully used to design partially prestressed concrete solid beams which cater for the combined effect of bending, shear and torsion loads.