EFFECTS OF STRAND CONFIGURATION ON PRE-TENSIONED I-GIRDERS

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of strand configuration on the behavior of precast, pre-tensioned concrete I-girders by considering design load components for highway bridges as dead loads and equivalent lane loads. Under these loads, bridge girder's bottom flange is exposed to tensile stresses. To minimize or eliminate the tensile stresses, compressive stresses are induced in pre-stressed concrete with strands. Determination of strand configuration is important as well as number of strands because it affects stress distribution and displacement of bridge girders. One of the typical precast I-girder with 90 cm height is considered in this study. To determine strand configuration effects, eighteen I-girders with the same cross-section, effective span length and material properties but different strand configuration are selected as an application. Equal prestressing force is applied all strands simultaneously. Three dimensional finite element (FE) models of girder are constituted using ANSYS software. Result of beam theory is used to verify the modeling techniques. At the end of the study, numerically identified stress distribution and displacement for I-girders compared with each other. It is seen that proper strand configuration is effective to reducing stresses and displacements of pre-stressed I-girder.