Flexural Behavior of Partially Pretensioned Continuous Concrete Beams

Abstract

This paper describes flexural behavior of two spans continuous rectangular concrete beams reinforced with mild steel and partially prestressing strands, to evaluate using different prestressing level and prestressing area in continuous prestressed beams at serviceability and ultimate stages. Six continuous concrete beams with 4550 mm length reinforced with mild steel reinforcement and partially prestressed with two prestressing levels of (0.7fpy  or 0.55fpy.) of and different amount of 12.7 mm diameter seven wire steel strand were used. Test results showed that the partially prestressed reinforced beams with higher prestressing level exhibited the narrowest crack width, smallest deflection and strain in both steel and concrete at ultimate service load, the deflection decreased by (3.60% & 32.49%) and the crack width decreased by (20.0%) and (75.0%) when increasing the prestressing level from (0.55fpy.) to (0.7fpy.) for beams reinforced with one and two strands respectively. Deflection of beams with two strands decreased by (44.81% & 22.2%) compared with beams of one strand at prestressing level of (0.7fpy.) and (0.55 fpy.), respectively. At ultimate load, using ACI-Code recommended moment redistribution led to more agreement between theoretical and experimental loads for both ordinary reinforced and partially prestressed beams.