Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
August 2001
Abstract
The use of external prestressing is becoming more popular throughout
Europe due to their expected higher durability and the possibility of active
maintenance of the prestressing cables. Questions have been raised about the
behaviour of these structures beyond service loads.
A comprehensive numerical analysis has been carried out comparing the
behaviour of three different types of externally prestressed bridges to a
conventionally internally prestressed bridge. The external types are a
monolithically built bridge with external tendons, a monolithically built bridge
with external tendons and blocked deviators, and a precast segmental bridge
with external tendons. The internally prestressed bridge is monolithic. The
primary objectives are to determine whether or not ductile failure occurs, i.e. the
load-deflection response, and the tendon stress increase at ultimate stage.
The results show that the monolithically built bridges have a considerable
higher ultimate moment capacity as well as deflection. This shows the
advantage
of
using
continuous
ordinary
reinforcement.
All
externally
prestressed types did not reach the capacities of the internally prestressed
bridge. It was found that ductility depends mostly on the reinforcement within
the cross-section. Externally prestressed girders have no prestressing cables in
the cross-section and need sufficient ordinary reinforcement in order to deform
ductile. Although the tendon stress increase up to failure in the actual analysis
is remarkable, the discussion shows that the magnitude varies greatly
depending on the layout of the whole structure.
TO ALL MY SUPPORTERS,
ESPECIALLY TO KRISTIN
Contents at a Glance
Introduction ........................................................................................ 1
Results .............................................................................................. 73
Contents
Acknowledgements.......................................................................................VIII
Notation............................................................................................................IX
1
Introduction ........................................................................................ 1
1.1
Definitions ..................................................................................... 1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
2
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.4.2
2.4.3
2.4.4
3.2
3.3
3.4
FE Calculation............................................................................. 32
3.4.1
Technical aspects............................................................................ 33
3.4.2
General approach............................................................................ 34
3.4.3
VI
3.4.4
Element specifications..................................................................... 40
3.4.5
3.4.6
Ordinary reinforcement.................................................................... 59
3.4.7
Prestress ......................................................................................... 60
3.4.8
3.4.9
3.4.10
3.4.11
Results .............................................................................................. 73
4.1
4.2
4.3
5.2
5.3
6
6.1
6.2
Recommendations ...................................................................... 99
107
115
120
VII
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the people, who helped me to do this MSc dissertation. In
particular, I would like to thank Tony Thorne, who set up the ABAQUS machine,
assisted me with UNIX, and tried to solve patiently all the bugs related with the
Pre-processing software, and also Jonathan Hulatt for his useful hints for
ABAQUS. Jonathan had also a look at my English writing despite his own workload. I am grateful to Nigel Hewson, who originally inspired me to the actual
topic of this dissertation and gave me some ideas to start with. Mike Ryall and
Paul Mullord helped me through useful discussion about prestressing and Finite
Element theory.
Jens Tandler
VIII
Notation
Symbols
Subscripts
b
Biaxial
Concrete
Mean, hydrostatic
Prestressing steel
Ultimate
x,y,z
x,y,z directions
Main symbols
Strain
Normal stress
Shear stress
1, 2, 3
Principal stresses
bp
cb
ce
pb
pb
pe
pe
tbu
te
IX
tp
xx
ao
Constant
bo
Constant
DL
Dead load
Youngs modulus
eb
Force
fc
fctm
fcu
fpu
ft
Gf
hx
k1
kc
Moment
Mapplied
Applied moment
Mcrbf, Mcrtf
Me
Nsd
Axial force on part of the section from the quasi permanent load
and prestress
Hydrostatic pressure
Distorsional stress
rbc
rt
Txx
Crack width
Lever arm
Zb, Zt
Sign convention
All compressive actions are indicated with a minus sign and the tensile actions
are shown with a positive sign or no sign respectively. There is one exception:
p, the hydrostatic pressure, is negative in tension and positive in compression.
Units
SI units are generally used. However, some values in graphs are given in
imperial units.
1 in
25.4 mm
1 ft
0.305 m
1 kip force =
4448 N
1 psi
1/145 N/mm
XI
1 Introduction
This dissertation is an investigation into the behaviour of externally
prestressed structures, focusing on bridge box girders, at the ultimate limit
state. The main objective is the ductility and the tendon stress increase up to
failure of externally prestressed structures. Their behaviour will be compared to
internally prestressed structures. The dissertation may have valuable
information for the first stages of the design process for medium span bridges
as the study is concerned about the overall safety and efficiency of prestressed
concrete bridges by the means of ductility. The aim is also to provide
information about the tendon stress at failure, which is required for the detailed
design.
1.1 Definitions
External prestressing is a special technique of post-tensioning. Posttensioning is used to apply prestress forces to the concrete after hardening.
(Hewson, 2000a). External tendons are placed outside of the section being
stressed. The forces are only transferred at the anchorage blocks or deviators
(Hewson, 2000b).
Figure 1-1: Typical view in box girder bridge with externally deflected tendons
(modified from Krautwald, 1998)
The figure shows the pure types. There are more techniques possible, which
are the hybrid systems. Hybrid systems are combinations between different
pure types. External prestressing in combination with internal post-tensioning is
recommended in Germany for launched box girders, although it is not widely
used. Pretensioning with internal post-tensioning has been used because of
limited stressing capacity for the pretension. All these hybrid systems are only
cost-effective in certain situations.
The difference between a monolithic constructions and a precast segmental
constructions is that the precast segmental constructions have no ordinary
reinforcement crossing the joints of the segments whereas monolithic bridge
constructions have normal reinforcement along the whole bridge. Precast
segmental bridges can be erected by lifting match cast segments into place by
the means of different crane types. The segment is then stressed against the
rest of the structure or held in place before stressing all segments together. A
monolithically cast concrete bridge can be lifted as a whole into place, launched
from the abutments, or constructed by balanced cantilever construction with slip
form.
Another example was the catastrophic collapse of what was once the
longest post-tensioned balanced cantilever bridge of the world with a span of
241m. The bridge in Guam suffered the destruction after an attempt to
strengthen the bridge with external tendons. The project was supervised by an
American structural engineer carried out largely by a well-established posttensioning contractor (NCE, 1996).
A considerable number of scientific papers have been published during the
last two decades dealing with ductility and tendon stress increase in externally
prestressed bridges. There are differences between the findings. Fundamental
research and work in this field was done by B.G. Rabbat and K. Slowat (1987),
J. Muller and Y. Gauthier (1989) and MacGregor R.J.G. et al. (1989). Many
codes of practice are based on this American research, e.g. the BD 58/94
Design of concrete highway bridges and structures with external unbonded
tendons for the UK. The connection to the above mentioned research work can
be found in Development of BA and BD 58/94 by Jackson P.A. (1995).
There have always been concerns about brittle failure of externally
prestressed bridges (Hollingshurst, 1995), because there is only a small
increase of the tension in the steel tendons until failure. Another concern was
coming from the behaviour of external prestressed segmental structures with no
passive reinforcement between the segments (Bruggeling, 1989).
Figure 1-4: Segmental box girder bridge with deflected external tendons and dry
joints under extensive loading in first span (Muller and Gauthier, 1989)
of the concerns, the failures, and the latest research. Also the ultimate limit
state might govern the check for such structures, because of the low increase of
strain up to failure in the tendon. This is in contrast to bonded internally
prestressed concrete structures, where the check at service governs the
amount of prestressing steel. There might also be important implications
regarding the cost efficiency of externally prestressed structures.
Figure 1-5: Elevation and cross-section of the Station Bridge Aue/ Germany with external
tendons (Schnberg and Fichtner, 1939)
Although the prestressing bars were not performing so well, the drawback of the
low tensile steel has been overcome by the advantage of external prestressing.
Figure 1-6: Sunshine Skyway (Florida) span by span precast segmental, externally
post tensioned approach spans (courtesy of Figg and Muller Engineers Inc.)