A Numerical Study on the Control of Horizontal Cracking at the Ends of BS22 Hollow-type PC-girders Utilizing Midas FEA

When the prestressing forces transfer from PC-strands to concrete, a region of stress concentration develops at the ends of pretensioned girders, which often results in horizontal cracking during or just after the detensioning process. In this study, a hollow PC-girder was modeled utilizing a Finite Element Analysis software Midas FEA to identify the horizontal cracking locations in terms of the principal stresses at the end-zone of the hollow PC-girder. Strand-debonding and placing end-zone reinforcements were hired in this work by introducing four cases. The only strand-debonding method could not prevent horizontal end crack penetration. Though the end-zone reinforcements were placed alongside the strand-debonding, this combination could reduce principal stresses to a level that could bring the crack size to a negligible range.