Design of Concrete Structures

-I
Lesson - 1
Introduction
CONCRETE & REINFORCED CONCRETE
Concrete is a stone like material obtained by permitting a carefully proportioned mixture of
cement, sand and gravel or other course aggregate, and water to harden in forms of the shape
and dimensions of the desired structure. The bulk of material consist of fine and course
aggregate. Cement and water interact chemically to bind the aggregate particles into a solid
mass. Additional water, over and above that needed for this chemical reaction, is necessary to
give the mixture the workability that enables it to fill the forms and surround the embedded
reinforcing steel prior to hardening. Concrete with a wide range of properties can be obtained
by appropriate adjustment of the proportions of the constituents materials. Special cements
(such as high early strength cement), special aggregates (such as various lightweight or
heavyweight aggregates) admixtures (such as plasticizers, air-entraining agents, silica fume,
and fly ash), and special curing methods (such as steam-curing) permit an even wider variety
of properties to be obtained.

These properties depends to a very substantial degree on the proportions of the mix, on the
thoroughness with which the various constituents are intermixed, and on the conditions of
humidity and temperature in which the mix is maintained from the moment it is placed in the
forms until it is fully hardened. The process of controlling conditions after placements is known
as curing. To protect against the unintentional production of substandard concrete, a high
degree of skillful control and supervision is necessary throughout the process, from the
proportioning by weight of the individual components, through mixing and placing, until the
completion of curing.
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The factors that make concrete a universal building material are so pronounced that it has been used, in more
primitive kinds and ways than at present, for thousands of years, starting with lime mortars from 12,000 to 6000 BCE
in Crete, Cyprus, Greece, and the Middle East. The facility with which, while plastic, it can be deposited and made to
fill forms or molds of almost any practical shape is one of these factors. Its high fire and weather resistance is an
evident advantage. Most of the constituent materials, with the exception of cement and additives, are usually available
at low cost locally or at small distances from the construction site. Its compressive strength, like that of natural stones,
is high, which makes it suitable for members primarily subject to compression, such as columns and arches. On the
other hand, again as in natural stones, it is a relatively brittle material whose tensile strength is small compared with its
compressive strength. This prevents its economical use in structural members that are subject to tension either entirely
(such as in tie-rods) or over part of their cross sections (such as in beams or other flexural members).

To offset this limitation, it was found possible, in the second half of the nineteenth century, to use steel with its high
tensile strength to reinforce concrete, chiefly in those places where its low tensile strength would limit the carrying
capacity of the member. The reinforcement, usually round steel rods with appropriate surface deformations to provide
interlocking, is placed in the forms in advance of the concrete. When completely surrounded by the hardened concrete
mass, its forms an integral part of the member. The resulting combination of two materials, known as reinforced
concrete, combines many of the advantages of each: the relatively low cost, good weather and fire resistance, good
compressive strength, and excellent formability of concrete and the high tensile strength and much greater ductility
and toughness of steel. It is this combination that allows the almost unlimited range of uses and possibilities of
reinforced concrete in the construction of buildings, bridges, dams, tanks, reservoirs, and a host of other structures.

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LOADS
Loads that act on structures can be divided into three broad categories: dead loads, live loads, and environmental
loads.

Dead loads are those that are constant in magnitude and fixed in location throughout the lifetime of the structure.
Usually the major part of the dead load is the weight of the structure itself. This can be calculated with good accuracy
from the design configuration, dimensions of the structure, and density of the material.

Live loads consist chiefly of occupancy loads in buildings. They may be either fully or partially in place or not present at
all, and may also change in location. Their magnitude and distribution at any given time are uncertain, and even their
maximum intensities throughout the lifetime of the structure are not known with precision. The minimum live loads
for which the floors and roof of a buildings should be designed are usually specified in the building code that governs
at the site of construction. Representative values of minimum live loads to be used in a wide variety of buildings are
found in Minimum Design Loads for Buildings and other structures, In Table 1.1. The table gives uniformly distributed
live loads for various types of occupancies, these include impact provisions where necessary. These loads are expected
maxima and considerably exceed average values.

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Table 1.1
Minimum uniformly distributed live loads in pounds per square foot
(psf)
Live Live
Occupancy or Use Occupancy or Use
Load, psf Load, psf
Hospitals
Office use 50 Operating rooms, laboratories 60
Computer use 100 Patient rooms 40
Corridors above first floor 80

Assembly areas and theaters 150

Libraries
Reading rooms 60
Lobbies 100
Stack rooms 150
Stage floors 100
Manufacturing
Balconies and decks 150
Light 125
Heavy 250
Office buildings:
Lobbies and first floor corridors 100
Dining rooms and restaurants 100
Offices 50
Corridors above first floor 80

Fire escapes 100

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 Live Live
Occupancy or Use Occupancy or Use
Load, psf Load, psf

Schools:
Classrooms 40
Gymnasiums 100
Corridors above first floor 80
First floor corridors 100

Sidewalks, vehicular driveways, and yards,

Residential 40 subject to trucking 250
Stairs and exit-ways 100

Hotels and multifamily houses Storage warehouses

Private rooms and corridors serving them 40 Light 125
Public rooms and corridors serving them 100 Heavy 250

Stores
Roofs
First floor 100
Ordinary flat, pitched, and curved roofs 20
Upper floors 73
Roofs used for roof gardens 100
Wholesale, all floors 125

Walkways and elevated platforms (other than

exit-ways) 60
Yards and terraces, pedestrians 100

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DESIGN BASIS
The single most important characteristic of any structural member is its actual strength, which must be large
enough to resist, with some margin to spare, all foreseeable loads that may act on it during the life of the
structure, without failure or other distress. It is logical, therefore, to proportion members, that is, to select
concrete dimensions and reinforcement, so that member strengths are adequate to resist forces resulting from
certain hypothetical overload stages, significantly above loads expected actually to occur in service. This
design concept is known as strength design.

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Previously, members were proportioned so that stresses in the steel and concrete resulting from normal service
loads were within specified limits. These limits, known as allowable stresses, were only fractions of the failure
stresses of the materials. For members proportioned on such a service load basis, the margin of safety was
provided by stipulating allowable stresses under service loads that were appropriately small fractions of the
compressive concrete strength and the steel yield stress. We now refer to this basis for design as service load
design. Allowable stresses, in practice, were set at about one-half the concrete compressive strength and one-half
the yield stress of the steel.

Because of the difference in realism and reliability, the strength design method has displaced the older service load
design method. Throughout this course, strength design is presented almost exclusively.

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Table 1.2
Factored load combinations for determining required strength U in the ACI Code

Primary Loada Factored Load or Load Effect U

Basicb U = 1.2D + 1.6L

Dead U = 1.4D
Live U = 1.2D + 1.6L + 0.5(Lr or S or R)
Roof, snow, rainc U = 1.2D + 1.6(Lr or S or R) + 0.5(1.0L or 0.5W)
Windc U = 1.2D + 1.0W + 1.0L + 0.5(Lr or S or R)
U = 0.9D + 1.0W
Earthquakec U = 1.2D + 1.0E + 1.0L + 0.2S
U = 0.9D + 1.0E
a
Where the following represent the loads or related internal moments or forces resulting from the listed factors: D = dead load; E = earthquake; L = live load; L r
= roof live load; R = rain; S = snow; and W = wind. In addition to the loads shown in this table, the ACI Code also requires consideration of loads due to F = fluids;
H = earth pressure; and T = cumulative effects of differential settlement and restraint of volume change (creep, shrinkage, temperature change).
b
The “basic” load condition of 1.2 D = 1.6 L reflects the fact that interior members in buildings are not subjected to L r or S or R and that 1.4 D rarely governs
design.
c
The load factor on live load L in these load combinations may be reduced to 0.5, except for garages, areas occupied as places of public assembly, and areas
where L is greater than 100 psf.

In all cases in Table 1.2, the controlling equation is the one that gives the largest factored load effect U.

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The strength reduction factors ϕ in the ACI Code are given different values depending on the state of knowledge, that
is, the accuracy with which various strengths can be calculated. Thus, the value for bending is higher than that for
shear or bearing. Also, ϕ values reflect the probable importance, for the survival of the structure, of the particular
member and of the probable quality control achievable. For both these reasons, a lower value is used for columns
than for beams. Table 1.3 gives some of the ϕ values specified in Chapter 21 of the ACI Code. The joint application of
strength reduction factors (Table 1.3) and load factors (Table 1.2) is aimed at producing approximate probabilities of
understrength of the order of 1/100 and of overloads of 1/1000. This results in a probability of structural failure of the
order of 1/100,000

Table 1.3
Strength reduction factors in the ACI Code

Strength Condition Strength Reduction factor ϕ

Tension-controlled sections 0.90

Compression-controlled sections
Members with spiral reinforcement 0.75
Other reinforced members 0.65
Shear and torsion 0.75
Bearing on concrete 0.65
Post-tensioned anchorage zones 0.85
Strut-and-tie models 0.75

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 The End
Book Reference:
Design of Concrete Structures (Nilson, Darwin & Dolan)
Chapter -1
Prof AFM Abdur Rauf - 01727246908