• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 1998.04b
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• pp.737-742
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• 1998

The tension stiffening effect is defined as the increase in stiffness in reinforced concrete member due to the stiffness provided by concrete between cracks. If this is disregarded in analysis of reinforced concrete members, especially at the level of service loads, member stiffnesses may be underestimated considerably. This paper presents on the failure behavior and tension stiffening of RC tension test with main variables such as concrete strength, rebar diameter and strength. The tension stiffening was analyzed from the load-displacement relationship by ACI code and the proposed by Collins & Mitchell. In summary, the effect of tension stiffening decrease rapidly as the rebar diameter increase, rebar strength increase, and concrete strength increase. The effect of tension stiffening on RC member is the biggest near the behavior of concrete cracking and decrease as the load close to the breaking point. Thus, the tension stiffening should be considered for the precise analysis near the load of concrete cracking.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.83-93
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• 1999

This paper presents tension stiffening effect of Reinforced concrete members obtained from experimental results on direct tension and bending. From the direct tension test program, crack patterns were investigated with tension softening behaviors of concrete. Tension stiffening effects and losses of strain energy were, also, analyzed from the load-deflection curve with the main experimental variables such as concrete strength, yielding stress and reinforcement ratio of rebar. Tension stiffening effect of RC members increase linearly until the first crack initiate, decrease inversely with number of cracks, and then decrease rapidly when splitting cracks are happened. The tension stiffening effect is shown to be more important at the member of lower reinforcement than that of higher. Therefore, it necessitates to consider the tension stiffening effects at a nonlinear analysis. From the above analysis, a tension stiffening model of concrete is proposed and verified by applying it to bending members. From the numerical analysis by finite element approach, it is shown that the proposed model evaluates a little higher in analyzing at nonlinear region of high strength concrete, but, perform satisfactorily in general.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.13-22
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• 2000

This paper describes the results obtained from 11 direct tension tests to explore the influence of concrete strength on tension stiffening behavior in reinforced concrete axial members. Three different concrete compressive strengths, 250, 650, and 900kgf/$\textrm{cm}^2$, were included as a main variable, while the ratio of cover thickness-to-rebar diameter was kept constant to be 2.62 to prevent from splitting cracking. As the results, it was appeared that, as higher concrete strength was used, less tension stiffening effect was resulted, and the residual deformation upon unloading was larger. In addition, the spacing between adjacent transverse cracks became smaller with higher concrete strength. The major cause for those results may be attributed to the fact that nonuniform bond stress concentration at both loaded ends and crack sections becomes severer as higher concrete is used, thereby local bond failure becomes more susceptible. From these findings, it would be said the increase in flexural stiffness resulting from using high-strength concrete will be much smaller than that predicted by the conventional knowledge. Finally, a factor accunting for concrete strength was introduced to take account for the effect of HSC on tension stiffening. This proposed equation predicts well the tension stiffening for the effect of HSC on tension stiffening. This proposed equation predicts well the tension stiffening behavior of these tests.

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.120-129
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• 1998

The tension stiffening in reinforced concrete member means increase of stiffness caused by the effective tensile stress between cracks and the tension softening behavior of concrete. This paper presents on the tensile behavior and tension stiffening of RC tension members. Direct tension tests were performed with a main experimental variables such as concrete strength, rebar diameter and strength. The tension stiffening was analyzed from the load-displacement relationship and was compared with ACI code, CEB model and the proposed by Collins ＆ Mitchell. The results are as follows : The tension behaviors of RC members were quite different from those of bare bar and were characterized by loading and concrete cracking steps. The effect of tension stiffening decreased rapidly as the rebar diameter and strength increased, and the concrete strength increased. The proposed by Collins ＆ Mitchell described well the experimental results, regardless of rebar types and concrete. But, ACI code and CEB model described a little differently, depending on the types. The effect of tension stiffening in RC member was the biggest near at concrete cracking step and decreased gradually to the bare bar's behavior as loading closed to the breaking point. Thus, tension stiffening in RC members should be taken into account when the load-deflection characteristics of a member are required or a precise analysis near the load of concrete clacking is needed.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.35-46
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• 1999

The steel fiber reinforced concrete may affect substantially to the tension stiffening at post cracking behavior. Even if several tension stiffening models exist, they are for plain and normal strength concrete. Thus, the development of tension stiffening models for steel fibrous high strength RC members are necessary at this time when steel fiber reinforced and high strength concretes are common in use. This paper presents tension stiffening effects from experimental results on direct tension members with the main variables such as concrete strength, concrete cover depth, steel fiber quantity and aspect ratio. The comparison of existing models against experimental results indicated that linear reduced model closely estimated the test results at normal strength level but overestimated at high strength level. Discontinuity stress reduced model underestimated at both strength levels. These existing models were not valid enough in applying at steel fibrous high strength concrete because they couldn't consider the concrete strength nor section area. Thus, new tension stiffening models for high strength and steel fiber reinforced concrete were proposed from the analysis of experimental results, considering concrete strength, rebar diameter, concrete cover depth, and steel fiber reinforcement.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.189-211
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• 2010

The behaviour of a reinforced concrete tension member is governed by the contribution of concrete between cracks, tension stiffening effect. Under highly repeated loading, this contribution is progressively reduced and the member response approximates that given by the fully cracked member. When focusing on the unloaded state, experiments show deformations larger than those of the naked reinforcement. This has been referred to as negative tension stiffening and is due to the fact that concrete carries compressive stresses along the crack spacing, even thought the tie is subjected to an external tensile force. In this paper a cycle-dependent approach is presented to reproduce the behaviour of the axially loaded tension member, paying attention to the negative tension stiffening contribution. The interaction of cyclic bond degradation and time-dependent effects of concrete is investigated. Finally, some practical diagrams are given to account for the negative tension stiffening effect in reinforced concrete elements.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2000.10a
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• pp.641-646
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• 2000

This paper describes an experimental investigation on the influence of concrete cover thickness on tension stiffening behavior. Total 36 direct tension specimens were tested with variation of cover thickness. Three different concrete compressive strengths were also considered. After cracking, as the cover thickness becomes thinner and the concrete strength becomes higher, tensile stiffness is decreased. Thereby an increase in cover thickness results in increase of the tensile cracking load and tension stiffening effect. Also the increase in concrete strength results in sudden decrease in tension stiffening effect. Hence, the cover thickness and concrete strength are proved to be important factors in tension stiffening behavior.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.57-66
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• 2000

The truss analogy for the analysis of beam-columns subjected of shear and flexure is limited by the contribution of transverse and longitudinal steel and diagonal concrete compression struts. However, it should be noted that even though the behavior of reinforced concrete beam-columns after cracking can be modeled with the truss analogy, they are not perfect trusses but still structural elements with a measure of continuity provided by a diagonal tension field. The mere notion of compression field denotes that there should be some tension field coexisting perpendicularly to it. The compression field is assumed to form parallel to the crack plane that forms under combined flexure and shear. Therefore, the concrete tension field may be defined as a mechanism existing across the crack and resisting crack opening. In this paper, the effect of concrete tensile properties on the shear strength and stiffness of reinforced concrete beam-columns is discussed using the Gauss two-point truss model. The theoretical predictions are validated against the experimental observations. Although the agreement is not perfect, the comparison shows the correct trend in degradation as the inelasticity increases.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.45-53
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• 2014

In strength limit states design, it is assumed that after cracking, reinforcement carries all tension in the tension zone of reinforced concrete members. However, it can be seen the concrete between cracks will contribute to carrying a part of the tension stress in actual concrete members particularly at service load levels, this effect is referred as tension stiffening effect. In this study, tension stiffening models and high strength concrete beam flexural test results were verified through comparison. The relationship between moment-curvature and load-deflection was evaluated by result of tension stiffening model and test result values. The analysis results showed that ACI 318 and Owen & Damjanic generally shows good agreement.

• KCI Concrete Journal
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.85-93
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• 2000

Potentially significant mechanical improvements in tension can be achieved by the incorporation of randomly distributed, short discrete fibers in concrete. The improvements due to the incorporation fibers significantly influence the composite stress - strain ($\sigma$-$\varepsilon$) characteristics. In general incorporating fibers in a plain concrete has relatively small effect on its precracking behavior. It, however, alters its post-cracking behavior quite significantly, resulting in greatly improved ductility, crack controls, and energy absorption capacity (or toughness). Therefore, a thorough understanding the complete tensile stress - strain ($\sigma$-$\varepsilon$) response of fiber reinforced concrete is necessary for proper analysis while using structural components made with fiber reinforced concrete. Direct tensile stress applied to a specimen is in principle the simplest configuration for determining the tensile response of concrete. However, problems associated with testing brittle materials in tension include (i) the problem related to gripping of the specimen and (ii) the problem of ensuring centric loading. Routinely, indirect tension tests for plain concrete, flexural and split-cylinder tests, have been used as simpler alternatives to direct uniaxial tension test. They are assumed to suitable for fiber reinforced concrete since typically such composites comprise 98% by volume of plain concrete. Clearly since the post-cracking characteristics are significantly influenced by the reinforcing parameters and interface characteristics, it would be fundamentally incorrect to use indirect tensile tests for determining the tensile properties of fiber reinforced concrete. The present investigation represents a systematic look at the failure and toughening mechanisms and macroscopic stress - strain ($\sigma$-$\varepsilon$) characteristics of fiber reinforced concrete in the uniaxial tension test. Results from an experimental parametric study involving used fiber quantity, type, and mechanical properties in the uniaxial tension test are presented and discussed.