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Text Sample: Chapter 3.4.6, Ordinary reinforcement: The ordinary reinforcement is provided by
the means of rebar elements. These elements can be defined singly or can be embedded in
oriented surfaces within an at least two-dimensional element. The latter method is used here.
Section 3.4.4 explains the configuration of the element type. This section deals with the amount of
reinforcement needed and how it is applied. The ordinary reinforcement is of high importance for
the model. There are two reasons. The first one is the nature of the structure to simulate. It is a
reinforced concrete structure. This might sound trivial, but it is often tried to model the concrete as
a homogeneous isotropic material. As long as there is no serious crack in it, there is every
justification to do so. However, reinforced concrete and prestressed concrete overcoming the
tensile strength of the concrete must be modelled with any reinforcement. Serious cracks have
therefore two characteristics. They have to be open, and they do not transfer any stress
component from the principal strain normal to the crack propagation. Both of these conditions are
true in certain areas of this model. The other reason, why reinforcement is needed, is the
constitutive model for concrete used in this analysis. This model does not or hardly converge
without any reinforcement. The manuals of ABAQUS mention this phenomenon. Smeared
reinforced concrete models own this characteristic. This was also found during the analysis. The
amount of ordinary reinforcement is taken as 1.5%. The magnitude is calculated from EC2 (DD
ENV 1992-2:2001). The calculation can be followed in Appendix B: Calculation of the minimum
reinforcement. The same amount is taken for the flanges as well as for the webs. The
reinforcement mesh is orthogonal placed in the midsurface of the concrete shell. For reasons of
simplicity, no attempt is made to place the reinforcement at its right position closer to the surfaces
of the shells. Although the reinforcement input has the information of the diameter and the
spacing, the actual calculation is performed only with a smeared orthotropic layer. Hence, the
value 1.5% reinforcement and the orthogonal directions are sufficient to describe the actual input.
But this amount is important because it describes a major difference between the bridge types.
The monolithic types have this reinforcement throughout the whole structure. The precast
segmental type has the continuous reinforcement only in the segments. It stops at the joints. This
is an important fact, because this investigation aims to find out, if this has any significance.
Chapter 3.4.7, Prestress: The section deals with the application of the prestress in the FE models.
There are two methods of doing it. The prestress can be applied as external forces on the model
and the constitutive model of the prestressing steel has to be adjusted by lowering the yield point
of the prestressing steel. This is the recommended method from several authors, for instances
Kotsovos and Pavlovic. The other method is to apply a real prestress to the tendons with initial
conditions. The second method is chosen in this analysis. The first method represents the
classical method of doing it and involves deviations from the original model, which are not
necessary with FE technique available nowadays. The main shortfall is the unsatisfactory
modelling of the behaviour of the model at the anchorages. The anchorage load will be typically
underestimated. This might be satisfactory in a high number of cases, because it can be
considered as a local effect only. The second approach, applying an initial prestress to the tendon,
is the more rigorous analysis. One of the aims of this analysis is to find out the tendon stress
increase at ultimate state. This can be easily done with this method. The tendon stress can be
read at failure and compared to the initial stress. Besides, this is exactly, what is found in reality.
The method with the substitute forces allows not such a direct comparison. However, the direct
method has also several difficulties. The first is applying the right prestress. The problem is the
elastic shortening of the structure, which means if the prestress is applied to the tendon and via
the anchorages to the structure, the concrete bridges shorten elastically. The effect can be fond in
reality in pretensioned structures only. This does not happen with post-tensioned structures.
Typically the jack is used to apply the prestress wanted. In fact, the elastic shortening is even not
noticed during the jacking process, because the jacking force is applied directly against the
structure. Elastic shortening is also depended from the dead load and the position of the
anchorage itself. ABAQUS offers here an easy way of keeping the prestress constant during the
initial equilibrium stage. A function is available, which is called *Prestress hold. This method
works excellent with the internal prestressed version and the externally prestressed version with
blocked deviators. The prestress can be set to the wished value and is kept constant during the
initial equilibrium state. The initial equilibrium state consists mainly of applying the prestress, the
dead load and occurrence of any kind of shortening. However, this does not work for the pure
external type and the precast segmental version. The allowance of movement at the deviators
makes the difference. If an initial stress is applied to the tendon and the first equilibrium step is
started, the tendon moves at the deviator as long as it reaches equilibrium for any reason. This
lead in trails to tendon movements of several meters by applying the prestress and the dead load
only (Figure 3-36). Of course, this does not happen in reality. The solution for this problem is a
more empirical search for the initial prestress. The tendon is stressed considering elastic
shortening, which means higher than original wished. The function *Prestress hold is omitted,
elastic shortening occurs and the prestress reduces. The Starting prestress can be found with
some trials or by simple hand calculations considering elastic shortening. It might be worth
mentioning that the distribution of tendon stress in reality even at initial state is varying along the
length mainly due to friction and deflecting forces, and is still more complicated than simulated in
this model. But it is believed that the calculation undertaken are a reasonable approximation. The
second problem initiated by this calculation approach is the concentration of stresses at the
anchorages. This might sound logical and happens in reality. Hence, it is also an advantage,
because it is close to the real condition. But the high stress at the anchorages caused a series of
anchorage failures during the analysis. The anchorage zone had to be heavily reinforced. The
amount of reinforcement is not further specified. The amount at the anchorage zones was simply
increased until the anchorage were save, because it is not the aim of this calculation to investigate
the anchorage zones. The elements for the tendons are beam elements as specified in 3.4.4 with
a very low second moment of area. The tendon element itself has a Youngs modulus of 0.1
N/mm. It is effectively a rubber tendon. But this rubber tendon is reinforced with a rebar element,
which has the properties of the real tendons. The combination is caused from the restrictions
imposed of ABAQUS. It was not possible to prestress any element. But it was possible to
prestress a rebar element, but a rebar element needs a parent element. The area for each long
tendon is 28500mm/2=14250mm and for each short tendon is 3600mm/2=1800mm. The Youngs
modulus is 193000 N/mm. These properties are further explained in section 3.3. The applied
prestress for the internal type and the external type with blocked deviators is 1197.6 N/mm. The
applied prestress for the other two versions is 1275 N/mm. The effect is the same and reasons
explained above. Other information about the time dependent application of dead load and
prestress is available in the next point. Chapter 3.4.8, Material and geometric non-linearity: All
calculations have been carried out firstly linear. This tends to be of significant importance. Firstly,
the mesh can be verified for sensible stress magnitude output and sensible boundaries of the
stress isobars. Critical points for the later non-linear analysis can also be seen in this pre-analysis.
The source of non-linearity in this case is mainly material non-linearity. However, considerable
deformation can also be expected. This makes the use of a combined non-linear calculation
algorithm necessary. A non-linear calculation is characterised by serious of linear steps divided
into increments and iterative steps. The prerequisites for the calculation of material non-linear
analysis are prepared by introducing non-linear constitutive models (3.4.5). This analysis is divided
into two steps. The dead load and prestress are applied in step 1. The second step is the
application of two point loads over the webs and the middle deviators until the structure fails. The
first step uses the method of Newton and the second step uses the method of Riks. The reason for
changing the methods is the higher capability of the Riks algorithm. This method is even able to
cope with sign change of the stiffness. As already mentioned, the first analysis step involves
applying of the prestress and the self-weight. This has to be done careful because an unbalanced
apply of those components could already destroy the bridge or damage the elasticity of the model
with unreasonable high cracking at an early stage. Cracks are stored for the whole calculation,
which means in practice they do not vanish during the life of structure but can only growth. Further
explanation on damaged elasticity can be found in section 3.4.5.2. The introduction of the
prestress does not typically damage the elasticity of structure in reality. The economical Newtons
method can be used here. This algorithm converges quite rapidly but is not capable of dealing with
qualitative stiffness change. Such a process is not expected by application of the prestress,
because the concrete tensile strength will not overcome anywhere in the structure and no cracks
influencing the calculations should growth. The original method of Newton is slightly modified in
this calculation. The calculation is divided into increments. The next figure demonstrates the
convergence scheme used. Only a short introduction to the method will be given. Further
formulations are omitted here, because they are readily available in Finite Element textbooks, for
instance Zienkiewics and Taylor.