ADVANTAGES OF USING HIGH PERFORMANCE CONCRETE IN PARTIALLY PRESTRESSED BEAMS AND OPTIMIZATION OF PARTIALLY PRESTRESSED RATIO

The main objective of this study is to investigate the behaviour of partially prestressed concrete (PPC) beams subjected to pure flexure. The test beams were produced by using both high performance concrete (HPC) and traditional concrete (TC). Test beams were compared with each other for strength, strain and cracking cases. The comparison was done by theoretical and experimental methods.Test measurements included failure loads, deflections, strains in concrete and steels, failure moments and service moments, experimental safety coefficients, number of cracks, crack widths, curvatures. Thus, optimum partially prestress ratio was determined for HPC and TC. Advantages of using high performance concrete in partially prestressed beams were brought out. According to the results of the study optimum partially prestress ratio for PPC beams produced by using traditional concrete is approximately %60. The ratio for PPC beams produced by using high performance concrete is approximately %70. The test results are shown that from many aspects to use high performance cocrete in PPC beams is more convenient than to use traditional concrete in PPC beams under some boundaries and conditions

Keywords:

beams , partially prestressed , high performance concrete , partially prestressed ratio