A Bond-Slip Modelling Approach for the Transfer Length of Pre-tensioned Concrete

Abstract

In this paper, a bond-slip relation at the prestress strand-concrete interface for pre-tensioned concrete is developed. The bond-slip behaviour is based on the confinement model developed by Den Uijl in order to properly address the influence of the nonlinear concrete material behaviour around the strand and the influence of the geometrical properties of the beam on the confinement of the prestress strand. Furthermore, this bond-slip behaviour is implemented in a finite element model to evaluate the transfer length of prestressed beams. The numerical model is compared to experimental results of two independent researchers and good agreement is achieved. This paper also presents the influence of several calibration constants of the bond-slip model on the resulting transfer length of the beam.