Study of bond properties of prestressing strand in high performance pretensioned concrete elements

Abstract

The results of a research about bond of pretensioned concrete elements are presented in this article. Mixes designed were high inicial performance normal weight and light-weight concrete?s. At present there is no standard procedure to measure bond performance of pretensioned concrete elements. To solve this two testing procedures have been designed in order to simulate bond behavior along both transfer length (namely LT frame test) and flexural bond length (namely LC frame test). These tests were gauged with pretensioned concrete elements having centered prestress (prisms) and eccentric prestress (beams). The latter were tested under flexure to determine the development length. Valuable conclusions were established about both light-weight and normal weight high strength pretensioned concrete elements. After the comparative analysis the authors concluded that tre proposed LT and LC frame tests provide upper and lower boundaries of transfer and developmente lengths.