Nonlinear numerical analysis of prestressed concrete beams and slabs.

Abstract

Due to the development of new constructive techniques, design of structures in prestressed concrete has been widely used in the practice. In this work the plate, bar and interface finite element formulations for numerical simulation of prestressed concrete beams and slabs is presented. Emphasis is given on the interface element that has the function of simulating a possible slip between the concrete and the prestress tendon as well as the stress and strain in that tendon. This interface element together with the proposed numerical model are the main contributions of this work. Some numerical and experimental examples obtained from the literature are used to validate the proposed model. In the numerical analysis presented in this article the concrete slabs are modeled with rectangular plate elements and the concrete beams modeled with bar elements. The active reinforcement and the contact between the active reinforcement and the concrete are modeled by interface elements. The geometric and material non-linearity are considered in the numerical analysis. The examples analyzed show the efficiency of the proposed model.