INFLUENCE OF TENSION STIFFENING EFFECT

ON DESIGN AND BEHAVIOUR OF

REINFORCED CONCRETE STRUCTURES

A. Elenas,1 L. Vasiliadis,1 E. Pouliou2 and N. Emmanouilidou2

1Democritus University of Thrace, Department of Civil Engineering, GR-67100 Xanthi, Greece;
2 Institute of Structural Mechanics and Earthquake Engineering,

Abstract: This paper presents the beneficial act of the tension stiffening effect in the design
process according to the rules of the EC2 Eurocode and DIN 1045-1. Different
approaches for the modelling of this phenomenon are offered. To describe this
effect, two different basic approaches are possible using micro- or macro-elements.
The first technique is coupled with a discrete representation of cracking, while the
second one is coupled with a smeared representation of cracking. The advantages
and the disadvantages of using these models are discussed. A numerical example
shows the beneficial act of the tension stiffening effect on a reinforced concrete
plate. The economy in reinforcement, when the tension stiffening effect is taken
into account during the design procedure, is quantified. Finally, non-linear analy-
ses expose the difference in stiffness and deflection, when tension stiffening is con-
sidered.

Key words: tension stiffening; reinforced concrete; numerical methods; design process.

1. INTRODUCTION
It is well known that when the concrete tensile stress in a member reaches the tensile
strength, cracking develops. Simultaneously, the load carried by the concrete before
cracking is transferred to the reinforcement crossing the crack. Then, the reinforcing bars
transfer local tensile stresses to the concrete between the cracks through bond stresses at
the steel–concrete interface. Therefore, the intact concrete between cracks continues to
carry tensile stresses and offers stiffness. This phenomenon resulting from crack forma-
tion and the bond between steel and its surrounding concrete is defined as the tension-
stiffening effect1. This is a property neither of the reinforcement nor of the concrete. It is
a typical property that appears only in the composite material of reinforced concrete,
where the two constitutive materials are present. Its ignorance leads to a too soft approx-

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M.S. Konsta-Gdoutos, (ed.), Measuring, Monitoring and Modeling Concrete Properties, 215–220.
© 2006 Springer. Printed in the Netherlands.
216 A. Elenas et al.

imation of the structure. Loading progression continues the crack building and with this a
drop of concrete stress between the cracks is connected. At last, the cracks are too close
for developing tension concrete stress and the concrete has no carrying capacity perpen-
dicular to the crack direction. So in this case the influence of the tension stiffening effect
vanishes.
Using the finite element method to describe this behaviour, two different basic
approaches are possible utilising micro- or macro-elements2-5. The first approach is cou-
pled with a discrete representation of cracking and is used when the size if the finite ele-
ments is of the same order if the crack width. The second approach, coupled with the
smeared representation of cracking, describes the tension stiffening phenomenon by a
modification of the stress-strain relation of the steel or the concrete material.

2. DIRECT APPROACH OF TENSION STIFFENING EFFECT

As mentioned in the introduction section, the direct approach of tension stiffening
effect is coupled with the discrete modelling of concrete cracking. This is done by dis-
connecting the displacement at nodal points for adjoining elements and adding link ele-
ments perpendicular and parallel to the reinforcement bar axis6. Setting the spring
stiffness of the link element both normal and tangential to the crack surface from the ini-
tial large values to zero represents the crack initiation. The closing or reopening of a
crack is judged on the crack width. When a crack is closed, only the vertical spring stiff-
ness to the crack surface is set equal to the initial large value.
One obvious difficulty in the discrete modelling is that the location and orientation of
the cracks are not a priori known. Thus, geometrical restrictions imposed by a prese-
lected finite element mesh cannot be avoided. This can be rectified to some extend by
redefinition of element nodes. The use of high-order elements, particularly the isopara-
metric ones, yields rather poor-quality corner-stress definition which does not blend well
with the edge cracking associated with the discrete crack concept. These are two disad-
vantages of the bond link element.
A second way of modelling bond in a finite element calculation is through the
employment of contact elements7. These elements connect the nodes of a steel element
with the respective of an adjacent concrete element. The contact element has a finite
dimension and at least two double nodes and the same length as the connected reinforce-
ment element. Contact elements can also be used in a two dimensional formulation.
Finally, a third group of bond zone elements8 differs significantly from the two types
described previously. The most important difference is their finite dimension. They
model the contact surface between steel and concrete as well as the concrete in the
immediate vicinity of the reinforcing bar by an adopted material law that considers the
special properties of this bond zone.
Such direct techniques of modelling of bond effects are extremely complex. Thus,
these approaches can be only used in simulation of laboratory tests and for very simple
structures or elements.
Tension stiffening effect on design of RC structures 217

3. INDIRECT APPROACH OF TENSION STIFFENING EFFECT

The indirect approach of tension stiffening effect is coupled with the smeared model-
ling of concrete cracking2-4. This assumption is physically reasonable, in view of the mate-
rial non-homogeneity of concrete. Its representation may be achieved by changing the
element stiffness matrix, assuming that the material becomes orthotropic with the modulus
for extension normal to crack band reduced to zero. Any direction of crack propagation
may be represented equally well, and incremental-iterative solution procedures may
account for crack propagation. The crack directions are not affected by the finite element
mesh pattern. In connection with the smeared crack model, there are two basically different
approaches to represent the tension stiffening effect: it can be attributed either to the con-
crete itself or to the reinforcement9. Figure 1 shows the modified stress-strain diagrams for
steel and concrete in tension for numerical modelling of the tension stiffening effect.
The first approach postulates a fictitious unloading branch in the stress-strain curve
of concrete instead of the abrupt drop-off of the tensile stress. They have proposed differ-
ent length and the appearance of the descending branch. Orientation and properties of
reinforcement have no influence. If no tension stiffening is taken into account, then the
descending branch at tensile concrete stresses vanishes.

Figure 1. Stress-strain diagrams for steel (a) and concrete in tension (b)

The second approach postulates an adjustment of the stress-strain diagram of steel

reinforcement after the surrounding concrete has cracked. The concrete is assumed to
carry no stress normal to a crack but an additional stress will be carried at the steel level.
This additional stress represents the total incremental tensile force in fact carried by the
concrete between the cracks, conveniently lumped at the level of the reinforcement and
oriented in the direction of the bars. The increase of the steel stresses is taken into account
by an increase of the steel modulus of elasticity. Its magnitude decreases with increasing
strains (further development of cracks) until there is no tension stiffening after the forma-
tion of the final crack pattern. This concept developed by Gilbert/Warner10 is popular
since tension stiffening as a bond property depends strongly on the orientation of the rein-
forcing bars. A variation of the second approach is the representation of tension stiffening
by a fictive additional reinforcement.

4. TREATMENT OF TENSION STIFFENING IN DESIGN CODES

Modified steel stress-strain laws are frequently used in non-linear analyses and are
also implemented in EC2 Eurocode11 and DIN 1045-112 to take into account the tension
stiffening effect. In these models the steel strain results numerically from a horizontal
218 A. Elenas et al.

move for constant steel stress. The physical meaning is a strain decrease of the steel rein-
forcement for the same stress. For the horizontal movement there are different
approaches in the literature presented. As shown in Figure 2, the EC2 Eurocode specifies
a parabolic approach, while the DIN 1045-1 a piece-wise linear one. An important differ-
ence between the two codes is that the EC2 model ignores the tension stiffening effect in
the yield region of steel.
Moreover, in DIN 1045-1 additional models for the numerical treatment of the tension
stiffening effect are given, for different design procedures as it is explained in Figure 4.
Thus, the models a, b and d can be used for the evaluation of the internal forces using non-
linear numerical procedures. Model b is to be used for the evaluation of the structural dis-
placements. Finally, Model c is to be used for the evaluation of crack widths.

Figure 2. Tension stiffening lines after EC2 and DIN 1045-1

Figure 3. Alternative tension stiffening lines after DIN 1045-1

5. NUMERICAL EXAMPLE AND RESULTS

A simply supported square plate has been designed in accordance to the design rules
of the EC2 Eurocode11 for uniformly applied load of 10 KN/m2. The dimensions of the
plate are 10 m x 10 m and its thickness is 20 cm. The concrete material is C20/25 and the
steel material is S500. First the plate is designed for the ultimate limit state which pro-
Tension stiffening effect on design of RC structures 219

vides 4.404 cm2/m required longitudinal reinforcement bars in the directions parallel to
the plate edges. After that, the plate is designed for the serviceability limit state for differ-
ent crack widths from 0.05 mm to 0.30 mm. The latter design procedure was carrying
once neglecting and once taking into account the tension stiffening effect. This effect was
taken into account by considering the average steel strain between the cracks.
The tension stiffening effect decreases the amount of the required longitudinal rein-
forcement bars, especially for small crack widths. Figure 4 shows the required area of the
longitudinal reinforcement bars for different crack widths (0.05 mm up to 0.30 mm). The
results are exposed graphically once neglecting the tension stiffening effect (curve 1) and
once taking into account the same effect (curve 2). Observing the two curves it can be rec-
ognised that curve 2 remains permanently below curve 1. This means that the economic
effect is present in all the cases, when the tension stiffening effect is taken into account. The
values where the reinforcement is less than statically required (4.404 cm2/m as mentioned
previously), is not of practical interest and is here only presented for completeness reasons.
Next, Figure 5 shows the difference of the required area of longitudinal reinforce-
ment between neglecting and taking into account the tension stiffening in the design pro-
cedure. Figure 5 shows the absolute value of the difference, which is about 2.23 cm2/m
for 0.05 mm crack width. This value drops below 0.8 cm2/m for 0.30 mm crack width.

Figure 4. Required longitudinal rein- Figure 5. Difference of the required

forcement longitudinal reinforcement

Figure 6. Midpoint deflection of the plate

220 A. Elenas et al.

Non-linear analyses have been carried out for the estimation of the influence of ten-
sion stiffening on the maximum plate deflection. Figure 6 presents the midpoint deflec-
tion in dependence of the crack width. Two different cases have been considered. The
first one is neglecting the tension stiffening effect, while the second one is taking into
account the same effect. The midpoint deflection of the plate is about 10% to 15%
increased when tension stiffening is neglected.

6. CONCLUSIONS
Several numerical treatments of the tension stiffening effect in reinforced concrete
elements have been presented. To describe this behaviour, two different fundamental
approaches are possible using micro- or macro-elements. Since non-linear analyses have
been introduced in modern design codes for reinforced concrete structures, rules for han-
dling the tension stiffening effect have also been introduced in these codes. Thus, modi-
fied steel stress-strain laws are used in EC2 Eurocode and DIN 1045-1 to take into
account the tension stiffening effect.
A numerical example demonstrated that neglecting the tension stiffening effect leads
to a too soft approximation of the structure. The economy in reinforcement, when the
tension stiffening effect is taken into account during the design procedure, has been
quantified. Thus, the mean difference percentage in reinforcement for the example used
in this investigation was 21.5%. Furthermore, non-linear analyses pointed out the differ-
ence in deflection when tension stiffening is considered. Finally, all these comments
should be taken into account for the safe and economic design of composite reinforced
concrete elements in the civil engineering praxis.

7. REFERENCES
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