Concepts Underlying Reinforced Concrete Design: Time for Reappraisal

Experimental evidence over the past 20 years has demonstrated that the underlying concepts of the provisions of some current codes of practice for the shear and flexural design of reinforced concrete structures conflict with fundamental properties of structural concrete at both the material and the structure levels. This study seeks to collate and present in a unified manner all available research on the conflict between the concepts underlying current code provisions and the causes of the observed and/or measured structural behavior. Findings show that this conflict is the cause of various types of unexpected premature brittle failure of reinforced concrete structures. Triaxial stress conditions that invariably develop in concrete at the ultimate-limit state of an reinforced concrete structure or element are not taken account by the methods adopted by current codes. Experimental evidence is presented that indicates the aforementioned types of failure can be prevented by adopting alternative design methods that allow for a more realistic description of structural concrete behavior.

Language

  • English

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Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01082177
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Files: TRIS
  • Created Date: Nov 30 2007 7:21AM