Effect of prestressing on the cracking moment of
RC flexure members
Rahil Qureshi1, Varun Singh Chandel2
Post graduate student,
Dept. of Structural Engineering, SMBS School,
VIT University, Chennai
Abstract:
Cracking moment is defined as the moment
due to the external loads, at which the first crack
occurs in a flexural member. Considering the
variability in stress at the occurrence of the first crack,
the evaluated cracking moment is just an estimate. In
general, various codes specify the cracking moment
for both the reinforced concrete and prestressed
concrete depending on the grade of the concrete. But
in prestressed concrete, apart from the high strength
concrete amount of prestressing and the presence of
non prestressing steel affects the cracking behavior.
Hence, a need is felt to simulate the behavior of
prestressed concrete in the context of cracking. For
this purpose, as a first step experimental test results of
RC beams are verified numerically and prestressed
concrete beams are modeled further and the results
were compared to study the effect of prestressing.
Keywords: cracking moment, beam, flexure,
moment, curvature, post-peak behaviour.
Introduction:
During the initial loading of RC beam the
portion of beam where the applied moment
M is less than cracking moment M cr will
remain uncracked. When the moment
exceeds Mcr the concrete in tension is
expected to fail at the outer tension fiber
Dr. Yamini Sreevalli.I, Professor
Professor,
Dept. of Structural Engineering, SMBS School
VIT University, Chennai
and the crack propagates inwards (toward
the neutral axis). In the beam segment
subjected to a constant moment M>M cr
theoretically the entire segment should
fully crack but in practice it is seen that
this does not happen and flexural cracks
are dispersed randomly such that there are
portion in between the crack which remain
uncracked.
Up to the first cracking, the entire
crossection is effective for the applied
internal moment and the stress strain
relation for concrete and steel remain
elastic. With the sudden increase in tension
in the steel, there is the associated
increase in tensile strain in the steel bars in
the cracked section. This relatively large
increase in tensile strain at the level of
steel results in an upward shift of neutral
axis and an increase in curvature at the
cracked section. It is true that first time
loading, small part of the concrete below
enclosed to the neutral axis (where the
tensile strength is less than that
corresponding to fcr) will remain uncracked
and effective.
.
Literature Review:

There is a substantial amount of research
done on the post-peak behaviour of member and its
effect on the cracking moment. The existing literature
on cracking moment and post peak behaviour are
reviewed here.
.
Wu yi (2006) investigated on Post-crack and
post-peak behavior of reinforced concrete members by
nonlinear finite element analysis. He carried out
experiments on reinforced concrete members with
different longitudinal reinforcement, web
reinforcement, concrete strength and axial
compression in order to validate the finite element
code. It is found that beyond the ultimate strength, the
strain reversal history of longitudinal reinforcement
has significant effects on the load-deflection behavior
of the member.
Rashid and Mansur (2005) has carried out
investigations on flexural behavior of reinforced HSC
beams with a wide range of concrete strengths. He has
presented useful information regarding the effects of
shrinkage of concrete and the resulting creep on
cracking moment and service load deflection and the
effect of concrete strength on ductility. Predictions of
cracking moment for high-strength concrete beams
with different ratios of Mcrexp/McrACI and Mcrexp/Mcrcal is
done and the Range of parameters considered are
Concrete strength fc, Tensile reinforcement,
compressive reinforcement is also done.
The study reported in his paper mainly investigates the
implications of using HSC in RC flexural members.
Test data generated in this study, together with those
collected from the literature, provided the necessary
database for investigating all of the major issues
concerning the flexural performance.
Ho, Kwan and Pam (2002) has introduced a
new method of analyzing the post-peak exural
behavior of reinforced concrete beams and applied to
normal and high-strength concrete beams. It was
revealed that at the post-peak stage the neutral axis
depth keeps on increasing, and at a certain point the
strain in the tension reinforcement starts to decrease,
even though the curvature is increasing monotonically.
Such strain reversal in the tension reinforcement
occurs in all concrete beams and has signicant effects
on the post-peak behaviour and exural ductility of
concrete beams.
When a reinforced concrete beam was
subjected to bending, the concrete at the tension side
soon cracks and the neutral axis moves to a certain
stable position. On further loading, the concrete in the
compression zone becomes inelastic. At a certain
stage, the concrete strain at the extreme compression
bre reaches the ultimate concrete strain and the beam
develops its peak resisting moment.
As the curvature increases and the concrete
becomes inelastic, the neutral axis depth gradually
decreases or increases depending on whether the
section is under or over-reinforced. However,
regardless of whether the section is under- or over-
reinforced, after the beam section has entered into the
post-peak stage, the neutral axis depth starts to
increase rapidly and beyond a certain point on the
momentcurvature curve the steel strain starts to
decrease, causing strain reversal and reduction in steel
stress. And a graph between stress and strain with or
without strain reversal allowed is also shown in this
investigation. In the case of an under-reinforced
section, the momentcurvature curve is almost linear
before the peak moment is reached and there is a fairly
long yield plateau with little change in resisting
moment at the post-peak stage before the resisting
moment drops more rapidly until complete failure.
However, in the case of an over-reinforced section, the
momentcurvature curve is more like a single smooth
curve with a sharp peak.
In a review given by Maroliya (2012) on
investigations provide comparison between the
economics and structural behaviour of the reinforced
concrete and prestressed concrete beams and finding
out the suitability of each. Results show that overall
flexural behaviour of prestressed concrete beam is
very good in all aspect compared to reinforced
concrete beam.
His research concluded that the cracking
moment is the one at which the linear pattern of graph
ends (With respect to Load Vs Deflection). Also the
cracking moment can be found from the strain
reading, as the strain is directly proportional to the
cracks.
 Objective
The objective is to study the effect of prestressing on
the cracking moment of prestressed beam and to find
out the post-peak behaviour analysis of member with
respect to the moment-curvature.
2. M. A. Rashid, M. A. Mansur. Reinforced High-
Strength Concrete Beams in Flexure. ACI
Structural Journal, V. 102, No. 3, May-June
2005.pp 462-472

3. J. C. M. Ho, A. K. H. Kwan and H. J. Pam.

Major contribution of this project is to provide
the behavior of post peak response of
RCC/PSC subjected to flexure.
To know the effect of prestressing steel on
cracking moment with comparison with RC
flexure beam 4.
Scope of Work:
1) In this analysis of RC beam subjected to
flexure, grade of concrete is taken as M35 for
both RCC and PSC beam. 5.
2) For prestressed beam, pretensioning of steel
is considered. 6.
It can be further extended to different types of
members and this study will guide a way for the
inclusion of tensile strength of concrete for the future
design calculation.
Theoretical analysis of post-peak flexural
behaviour of normal- and high-strength concrete
beams. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 12, 109
125 (2003)
M K Maroliya. Comparative Study of Flexural
Behaviour of Reinforced Concrete Beam And
Prestressed Concrete Beam. International Journal
of Engineering Research and Applications Vol. 2,
Issue 6, November- December
2012, pp.230-233.
S Unnikrishna Pillai and Devdas Menon
Reinforced Concrete Design
M.Nadim Hassoun and Akthem Al-Manaseer
Structural Concrete

Methodology:
1) RC beam section is taken.
2) It is modeled in Ansys v16 software with
required data and condition.
3) The member is then analyzed with the
considerations of the forces.
4) Data considered for the analysis of the
structure is taken from IS 456:2000, IS 1343
1980 and literature.
5) Moment curvature graph is plotted for RC
beam numerically and is verified with the
literature.
6) The analysis is done on the prestressed beam
with the same data taken for RC beam.
7) The moment curvature for prestressed is also
plotted.
8) Comparison of Mcr for both RC beam and
prestressed beam is done.
9) Graph is plotted between moment and
curvature for both RCC beam and Prestressed
beam.

References:
1. WU YI. Post-crack and post-peak behavior of
reinforced concrete members by nonlinear finite
element analysis. Ph.D. Thesis The University of
Hong Kong (2006)