On development of suitable stress fields for structural concrete

Abstract

Strut-and-tie models and stress fields are methods that can be used for the dimensioning and detailing of reinforced and prestressed concrete structures as well as for checking existing ones. This paper presents an innovative approach toward the automatic development of stress fields based on a nonlinear finite element analysis. Strut-and-tie models can also be easily developed from the resulting stress fields. Most of the difficulties of the existing methods for developing stress fields and strut-and-tie models based on elastic uncracked analyses are overcome. The application of the proposed approach to the dimensioning of structural members in practical cases is detailed and several comparisons with experimental results are discussed. Copyright © 2007, American Concrete Institute. All rights reserved.