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Redistribution of Moments in a Three Span Continuous Beam To demonstrate the advantage of moment redistribution considers the continuous three-span beam. To obtain maximum moments at all critical design sections, it is necessary to consider three alternative loading cases: Case a: to produce the M max in the exterior spans: load exterior span with live and dead load and dead load only over the interior span. Case b: to produce the M max in the interior spans: load interior span with live and dead load on exterior span. Case c: to produce the M max over the interior supports: place dead and live load on the two adjacent span and dead load on the far exterior span. It will be assumed for simplicity that a 20% adjustment of support moments is permitted, provided span moments are modified accordingly. An overall reduction in design moments through the entire three-span beam may be possible. Case a, produces an elastic M 109 ft kips in the exterior spans. Adjusting the support moment upward by 20%, we get M 98 ft kips which results in a downward adjustment of the span moment M 101 ft kips . Case b, by a similar redistribution of moments, a reduced middle span moment of M 57 ft kips is obtained through an increase of the support moment from M 78 ft kips to M 93 ft kips . Corresponding to this is an elastic M 82 ft kips at the interior support.

Case c, the support moment M 134 ft kips is decreased by 20% to

M 107 ft kips .

To avoid increasing the controlling span moment of the interior span, the right interior support moment is adjusted upward by 20% to 80 ft kips . The positive moments in the left exterior span and in the interior span corresponding to these modified support moments are 96 ft kips and 56 ft kips , respectively. The reduction obtained for the M in cases a and b were obtained at the expense of increasing the M at the first interior support. However, the increased M in cases a and b was less than the moment for which that support would have to be designed based on the loading case c, which produced the maximum M at the support. Similarly, the reduction in M at the support in case c was taken at the expense of an increase in span moment M in the two adjacent spans. However, in each case the increased span moments were less than the maximum span moments obtained for other loading conditions.

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The final design moments at all critical sections are underlined in the Figure. Thus modification of moment does not mean a reduction in safety factor below that implied in code safety provisions; rather, it means a reduction of the excess strength that would otherwise be present in the structure because of the actual redistribution of moments that would occur before failure. It reflects the fact that the maximum design moments are obtained from alternative load patterns, which could not exist concurrently. The end result is a more realistic appraisal of the actual collapse load of the indeterminate structure

Figure: Redistribution of Moments in a Three Span Continuous Beam