Philippine E-Journals

Effect of Cut Pre-stressed Steel Tendon Wires on the Structural Strength of Normal Concrete

Nahum L. Bravo

Discipline: Industrial Engineering

 

Abstract:

This research presents the experimental investigation of structural concrete reinforced with 2.5 inches cut pre-stressed steel tendon wires. The properties investigated were compressive strength and flexural strength of concrete specimens. The effect of mixing varying amounts of volume of cut pre-stressed steel tendons was also investigated. A total of 4 concrete mixture proportions were batched and investigated. These are Mixture 1 (Control specimen), which has no cut tendons added in the concrete mixture, Mixture 2 (with 1.0 % volume of cut tendons added), Mixture 3 (with 1.5% volume of cut tendons added) and Mixture 4 (with 2. % volume of cut tendons added). In the mixtures, the volumes of sand were replaced by the percentages of tendons. Several experiments were conducted using the ASTM Standards.

The results indicate that cut pre-stressed steel tendons have relatively no significant effect on the compressive strength of concrete. On the other hand, cut pre-stressed steel tendons added to a concrete mixture produced concrete specimens with significantly high flexure (bending) strength. The flexure strength of concrete increased by as much as 50 % compared to ordinary concrete with the incorporation of 2.0% volume of cut pre-stressed tendons in the concrete mixture. The incorporation of cut pre-stressed steel tendons also visibly reduced cracking in concrete. The resulting concrete also exhibited less brittleness and disintegration at applied failure loads.