Department of Civil Engineering

Indian Institute of Technology Madras

CE 5710: Prestressed Concrete Design
Assignments– I (Due date: 27.09.2019)

1. A prestressed concrete beam of rectangular cross-section of 150mm × 350mm deep supports a

uniformly distributed load of 5.0 kN/m including the self weight. The effective span of the
beam is 10.0 m. The beam is prestressed by a concentric cable carrying a force of 180 kN.
Locate the position of the pressure line in the beam.
2. A rectangular concrete beam 360mm deep and 200mm wide is pretressed by means of 15 wires
of 5.0 mm diameter located at 65.0 mm from the bottom of the beam and 5 wires of 5.0 mm
diameter, located at 25mm depth from the top the beam. If the wires are initially tensioned to a
stress of 840N/mm², calculate the percentage loss of stress in steel immediately after transfer,
allowing for the loss of stress due to elastic deformation of concrete only. Ep = 210 kN/m2 and
Ec = 31.5 kN/m2.
3. A post-tensioned concrete beam 100mm wide and 300mm deep is prestressed by three cables,
each with across-sectional area of 50mm² and with an initial prestress of 1200 N/mm2. All the
cables are straight and located 100mm from the soffit of the beam. If the modular ratio is 6.0,
calculate the loss of stress in the three cables due to elastic deformation of concrete for only the
following cases.
(a) Simultaneous tensioning and anchoring of all the three cables: and
(b) Successive tensioning of the three cables, one at a time.
4. An unsymmetrical I-section beam is used to support an imposed load of 5.0 kN/m over a span
of 10.0 m. The details of the section are: Top flange; width=300mm, thickness=60mm; Bottom
flange; width = 150mm, thickness=60mm. The web thickness = 80mm. The overall depth of the
beam =400mm. At the center of the span, if the eccentricity of the 100 kN prestressing force is
50mm from the soffit of the beam, estimate the stresses at the centre of span section of the beam
for following load combinations.
(i) Prestress + self weight
(ii) Prestress + self weight + live load.
5. A rectangular beam of cross-section 300mm deep and 200mm wide is prestressed by means of
15 wires of 5mm diameter at 65mm from the bottom and 3 wires of 5.0 mm diameter at 25mm
from the top. Assuming the prestress in steel as 840N/mm², calculate the stress at the extreme
fibers of the mid-span section when the beam is supporting its own weight aver a span of 6.0m.
If a uniformly distributed live load of 6.0 kN/m is imposed, evaluate the maximum working
stress in concrete. Density of concrete is 24 kN/m³.
6. Derive expressions for estimating loss of prestress due to elastic shortening of concrete, slip of
prestressing strands, friction or wobble effects, creep and shrinkage of concrete from the
fundamental principles.