Concrete Stress Block Parameters for High-Strength Concrete : Recent Developments and Their Impact

The use of the current ACI 318 stress block parameters has been reported to provide unconservative estimations of the moment capacities for high-strength concrete columns. Accordingly, several concrete stress block parameters have been recently proposed. This paper discusses various concrete stress block parameters for high-strength concrete and their influences on the code provisions. In order to adopt the proposed stress block parameters to the design code, it is necessary to understand the impact of the change of the stress block parameters on various aspects of the code provisions. For this purpose, the influence of using of different stress block parameters on the location of the neutral axis and the tensile strain in extreme tension steel as well as the axial and moment capacities are investigated. In addition, the influence on the prestressed concrete members is also elucididated.