• Computers and Concrete
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.55-71
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• 2015

This paper presents a novel harmony search (HS)-based data-driven single input rule modules (SIRMs)-connected fuzzy inference system (FIS) for the prediction of stress in externally prestressed tendon. The proposed method attempts to extract causal relationship of a system from an input-output pairs of data even without knowing the complete physical knowledge of the system. The monotonicity property is then exploited as an additional qualitative information to obtain a meaningful SIRMs-connected FIS model. This method is then validated using results from test data of the literature. Several parameters, such as initial tendon depth to beam ratio; deviators spacing to the initial tendon depth ratio; and distance of a concentrated load from the nearest support to the effective beam span are considered. A computer simulation for estimating the stress increase in externally prestressed tendon, ${\Delta}f_{ps}$, is then reported. The contributions of this paper is two folds; (i) it contributes towards a new monotonicity-preserving data-driven FIS model in fuzzy modeling and (ii) it provides a novel solution for estimating the ${\Delta}f_{ps}$ even without a complete physical knowledge of unbonded tendons.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.83 no.3
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• pp.363-375
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• 2022

Flexural capacity prediction is a challenging problem for externally prestressed concrete beams (EPCBs) due to the unbonded phenomenon between the concrete beam and external tendons. Many prediction equations have been provided in previous research but typically ignored the differences in deformation mode between internal and external unbonded tendons. The availability of these equations for EPCBs is controversial due to the inconsistent deformation modes and ignored second-order effects. In this study, the deformation characteristics and collapse mechanism of EPCB are carefully considered, and the ultimate deflected shape curves are derived based on the simplified curvature distribution. With the compatible relation between external tendons and the concrete beam, the equations of tendon elongation and eccentricity loss at ultimate states are derived, and the geometric interpretation is clearly presented. Combined with the sectional equilibrium equations, a rational and simplified flexural capacity prediction method for EPCBs is proposed. The key parameter, plastic hinge length, is emphatically discussed and determined by the sensitivity analysis of 324 FE analysis results. With 94 collected laboratory-tested results, the effectiveness of the proposed method is confirmed, and comparisons with the previous formulas are made. The results show the better prediction accuracy of the proposed method for both stress increments and flexural capacity of EPCBs and the main reasons are discussed.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 1999.10a
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• pp.681-684
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• 1999

The development of external prestressing methods has been one of the major trends in the concrete bridge constructions over the past decades. One of the promising methods to enhance the flexural strength of a externally prestressed girder is to place the tendons with large eccentricities. The test results in this study showed that the external prestressing of a composite girder increased the range of the elastic behavior, reduced deflections, increased ultimate strength, and added to the redundancy by providing the multiple stress paths. This study was conducted on the concrete bridges reinforced by the continuous girders and the external prestressing.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.513-521
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• 2009

Recently, the externally prestressed unbonded concrete structures are increasingly being built. The mechanical behavior of prestressed concrete beams with external unbonded tendon is different from that of normal bonded PSC beams in that the slip of tendons at deviators and the change of tendon eccentricity occurs as external loads are applied in external unbonded PSC beams. The purpose of the present paper is therefore to evaluate the flexural behavior by performing static flexural test according to tendon area and tendon force. From experimental results, before flexural cracking, there was no difference between external members and bonded members. However, after cracking, yielding load of reinforcement, ultimate load, and the tendon stress of external members was lower than that of bonded members. For the relationship of load-tendon stress, the increasing of tendon strain was inversely proportional to the initial tendon force. However, even if the initial tendon force was large, the tendon strain with small effective stress was smaller than that with large effective stress. The concrete compressive strain was proportional to the effective stress of external tendon. From the comparison between test results and codes, the ACI-318 could not consider the effect of tendon force or effective stress, and especially the results of ACI-318 were very small, so it was very conservative. And the AASHTO 1994 could be influenced on the tendon area, initial force and effective stress, but as it was made on the basis of internal unbonded tendon, its results were much larger than the test results. For this reason, the new correct predict equation of external tendon stress will be needed.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.241-258
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• 2012

The need for long-span members increases gradually in recent years, which makes issues not only on ultimate strength but also on excessive deflection of horizontal members important. In building structures, the post-tension methods with unbonded tendons are often used for long-span members to solve deflection problems. Previous studies on prestressed flexural members with unbonded tendons, however, were mostly focused on the ultimate strength. For this reason, their approaches are either impossible or very difficult to be implemented for serviceability check such as deflection, tendons stress, etc. Therefore, this study proposed a flexural behavior model for post-tensioned members with unbonded tendons that can predict the initial behavior, before and after cracking, service load behavior and ultimate strength. The applicability and accuracy of the proposed model were also verified by comparing with various types of test results including internally and externally post-tensioned members, a wide range of reinforcement ratios and different loading patterns. The comparison showed that the proposed model very accurately estimated both the flexural behavior and strength for these members. Particularly, the proposed model well reflected the effect of various loading patterns, and also provided good estimation on the flexural behavior of excessively reinforced members that could often occur during reinforcing work.