Effects of cyclic loading on the long-term deflection of prestressed concrete beams

Creep and shrinkage have pronounced effects on the long-term deflection of prestressed concrete members. Under repeated loading, the rate of creep in prestressed concrete members is often accelerated. In this paper, an iterative computational procedure based on the well known Model B3 for creep and shrinkage was developed to predict the time-dependent deflection of partially prestressed concrete members. The developed model was validated using the experimental observed deflection behavior of a simply supported partially prestressed concrete beam under repeated loading. The validated model was then employed to make predictions of the long-term deflection of the prestressed beams under a variety of conditions (e.g., water cement ratio, relatively humidity and time at drying). The simulation results demonstrate that ignoring creep and shrinkage could lead to significant underestimation of the long-term deflection of a prestressed concrete member. The model will prove useful in reducing the long-term deflection of the prestressed concrete members via the optimal selection of a concrete mix and prestressing forces.