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THEORY OF REINFORCED CONCRETE BEAMS

Plain concrete is strong in compression, weak in tension.

Tensile strength of concrete (10-15)% compressive strength.


A beam made of concrete has very low load carrying capacity as its low tensile strength limits the overall strength. To strengthen the beam, steel bars are placed in tension zone of concrete so that compressive bending stress is carried by concrete and tensile bending is carried entirely by steel reinforcing bars.

THEORY OF RC BEAMS
Reinforced concrete beams are designed by 1. Straight-line Theory (or) Elastic Theory

2. Ultimate Load Theory and


3. Limit State Theory In elastic theory, strength of concrete and steel are divided

by safety factors to determine allowable stresses.


In ultimate load theory, resistance of beam to pure bending is determined either by ultimate strength of concrete or by

yield point stress of steel, and then the resistance can be divided by proper safety factor to determine the bending resistance that can be relied upon under working conditions.

Basic Design Concepts


Safety: implies that the likelihood of (partial or total) collapse of the structure is acceptably low not only under (the normal loads) service loads but also under overloads. Serviceability: satisfactory performance of structure under service loads without discomfort to the user due to excessive deflections, cracking, vibration etc.

Other considerations such as durability, impermeability, acoustic and thermal insulation etc.

WORKING STRESS METHOD


Assumptions
1. At any cross-section, plane section before bending remains plane after bending. 2. Structural materials behave in linear elastic manner. 3. Permissible stresses are well below the strength of material. 4. Modulus of elasticity of concrete is constant. 5. Ratio of modulus of elasticity of steel to concrete, m
280 3 cbc

6. Perfect bond exists between steel and surrounding concrete..


7. All tensile stresses are taken by steel alone and none by concrete

WORKING STRESS DESIGN


Sections of members of structures are designed assuming straight line stress-strain relationships ensuring that at service loads the

stresses in steel and concrete do not exceed the allowable working


stresses. Allowable stresses are taken as fixed proportions of the ultimate

or yield strength of materials.


BM and SF on statically indeterminate structures are calculated assuming linear elastic response.

WORKING STRESS METHOD


b c kd c kd/3 kd d

d(1-k/3)

Ast

s (b) (c)

st/m

(a)

(a) Section

(b) Strain diagram

(c) Stress variation

Cracking Moment
When the stress in extreme tension fiber reaches its modulus of rupture, fcr, the beam section cracks.
M cr f cr It yt

fcr = Modulus of rupture Mcr = Cracking moment It = Second moment of area of transformed concrete section with reference to NA.

byc3 byt3 2 It m 1 Ast ys 3 3

Cracking Moment
In the uncracked stage, the applied BM is less than the cracking moment Mcr and the maximum tensile stress, fct in concrete is less than its flexural tensile strength fcr. As the applied moment on beam section increases beyond linear elastic cracked phase, concrete strains and stresses enter nonlinear range.

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