Anchorage Zones for Prestressed Concrete

What is an Anchorage Zone for Prestressed Concrete?

Prestressed concrete contains tendons which are typically stressed to about 1000 MPa.
These tendons need to be anchored at their ends in order to transfer (compressive)
force to the concrete. In pretensioned concrete, the anchorage consists of a bonded
length of tendon, in direct contact with the concrete. In post-tensioned concrete, an
achorage plate is used, which bears onto the concrete over a relatively small area.

The tendon is connnected to the plate either through wedges, button-heads or other
methods. The plate itself then bears on the concrete. The plates employed for this are
very much smaller than the area of concrete which is to be compressed. Therefore, a
redistribution of stress occurs behind the anchorage plate as the compression
trajectories spread out to form uniform stress patterns some distance into the concrete,
according to St Venant's Principle.

It is the distance over which this redistribution occurs that is of interest to the
Engineer. This disturbed region is known as the Anchorage Zone.

Why is it Important?
The state of stress in the anchorage zone is extremely complex. It consists of severely
curved trajectories, perhaps interfering with 'secondary' stresses due to bearing
supports. Therefore, it is in the Engineer's interest to ensure two things in this zone.

1. The zone must not crack at the serviceability limit state (this would allow the
ingress of water, leading to possible corrosion problems), and

2. The zone must not fail at the ultimate limit state.

The main thrust of my research has been the determination of ultimate strength of
anchorage zones, although I have also considered the serviceability limit state.

What is the background to this field?

Long before prestressed concrete had been invented, work was carried out on studying
the problem of concentrated loads acting on stone and concrete. Several theories were
proposed for determining the 'bursting' resistance of stone blocks, loaded through
patches. These theories all considered ultimate failure to be caused by the tensile
strength of the material being reached. This was perfectly reasonable, as bursting
cracks occurred simultaneously with ultimate failure.

When prestressed concrete was invented, Engineers continued to use such theories
(and indeed several design codes still use these theories for the ultimate limit state
today) for the bursting strength of anchorage zones. However, anchorage zones are
invariably reinforced with steel, which increases the ductility of the material (and
allows redistribution of stress to occur before collapse). Therefore, it is now
unreasonable to assume that ultimate failure of anchorage zones occurs as a function
of the tensile strength of concrete. The combined strength of the concrete and steel
must be allowed for in the determination of the strength of the anchorage zone.
Further, collapse will no longer be caused by 'bursting', but by 'wedging' of the plate
into the relatively ductile reinforced concrete.

What work was carried out in this research?

It was considered imperative to determine the form of failure of anchorage zones at
both the serviceability and ultimate limit states. This was carried by testing over a
hundred concrete blocks, reinforced with stirrups to prevent bursting/wedging failure.
The effect of several variables were studied.

The relative size of the loading plate was found to be the single most important factor
in the determination of the strength of the zone, as expected. The quantity, spacing
and positioning of the steel stirrups was found to be a major variable. The presence of
ducts was also considered.

Analysis of first cracking of the blocks was carried out using elastic finite elements.
Where steel crossed the critical crack line, assumed strains in the steel were employed
and an increase in cracking load determined. As expected, such first cracking occurred
beneath the centreline of the loading plate. This crack usually opened and extended
the length of the specimen, while the load increased. The FE model was relatively
accurate in determining this first cracking load.

After this crack had formed, the blocks continued to take more load, until wedging
occurred under the loading plate. This wedging was usually 'in-plane', although 'out-
of-plane' failure was also encountered. Such wedging occurred in a somewhat ductile
manner, so that plasticity theory was considered a possibility in the analysis of these
blocks. Both upper- and lower-bound methods were employed and encouraging
results found. The theory was able to cloesely predict the type of wedging (curved or
straight) and the ultimate load.
Three-dimensional analyses were also conducted, using both pure plasticity as well as
a combination of FEs and plasticity theory. Again, encouraging results were obtained.

What principle conclusions have been made?

These points led us to make the following principle conclusions in the research.

1. The serviceability limit state may be considered by using simple equilibrium

models/stress variation assumptions. Alternatively, elastic finite element models could
be used to calculate when cracking in the concrete ought to occur, coupled perhaps
with some assumption about what level of stress is present in the steel reinforcement
at this limit state, and

2. The ultimate limit state should be considered as a shear-compression failure in the

concrete, leading to wedging into the concrete by the bearing plate. Since failure
consists of a shear (rigid-block) mechanism and considerable ductility has been
observed in such tests, it is considered useful to look at plasticity theories for this
problem.
 Anchorage in reinforced concrete
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Contents
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 1Reinforced Concrete: Definition

 2Mechanism of composite action of reinforcement and concrete
 3Anchorage (bond) in concrete: Codes of specifications
 4References

Reinforced Concrete: Definition[edit]

Reinforced concrete [RC] is concrete in which reinforcement bars ("rebars"), reinforcement
grids, plates or fibers are embedded to create bond and thus to strengthen the concrete in tension.
The composite material was invented by French gardener Joseph Monier in 1849 and patented in
1867.[1] Conventionally the term Concrete refers only to concrete that is reinforced with iron or steel.
However, other materials are often used to reinforce concrete e.g. organic and inorganic
fibres, composites in different forms. While compared to its compressive strength, concrete is weak
in tension. Thus adding reinforcement increases the strength in tension. The other purpose of
providing reinforcement in concrete is to hold the tension cracked sections together.

Mechanism of composite action of reinforcement and concrete[edit]

The reinforcement in a RC structure, such as a steel bar, has nothing to do with the anchrundergo
the same strain or deformation as the surrounding concrete in order to prevent discontinuity, slip or
separation of the two materials under load. Maintaining composite action requires transfer of load
between the concrete and steel. The direct stress is transferred from the concrete to the bar
interface so as to change the tensile stress in the reinforcing bar along its length. This load transfer
is achieved by means of bond (anchorage) and is idealized as a continuous stress field that
develops in the vicinity of the steel-concrete interface.

Anchorage (bond) in concrete: Codes of specifications[edit]

Because the actual bond stress varies along the length of a bar anchored in a zone of tension, most
international codes of specifications [2][3][4] use the concept of development length rather than bond
stress. The main requirement for safety against bond failure is to provide a sufficient extension of the
length of the bar beyond the point where the steel is required to develop its yield stress and this
length must be at least equal to its development length. However, if the actual available length is
inadequate for full development, special anchorages must be provided, such as cogs or hooks or
mechanical end plates. The same concept applies to lap splice length mentioned in the codes where
splices (overlapping) provided between two adjacent bars in order to maintain the required continuity
of stress in the splice zone.