MULUNGUSHI UNIVERSITY
School of Engineering and Technology
Department of Engineering
CIE - CONCRETE REINFORCEMENT
• LECTURE 3 - Design in reinforced concrete to BS
8110
Eng Ng'andu.P MSc B.Eng. MEIZ [email protected] +260978991328
Reinforced concrete is one of the principal
materials used in structural design. It is a
composite material, consisting of steel
reinforcing bars embedded in concrete. These
two materials have complementary properties.
Concrete, on the one hand, has high compressive
strength but low tensile strength. Steel bars, on
the other, can resist high tensile stresses but will
buckle when subjected to comparatively low
compressive stresses.
Since the primary aim of this is to give guidance on the design of
structural elements, this is best illustrated by considering the
contents of BS 8110. BS 8110 is divided into the following three
parts:
Part 1: Code of practice for design and construction.
Part 2: Code of practice for special circumstances.
Part 3: Design charts for singly reinforced beams, doubly reinforced
beams and rectangular columns.
Part 1 covers most of the material required for everyday design. Since most of
this chapter is concerned with the contents of Part 1, it should be assumed that
all references to BS 8110 refer to Part 1.
Part 2 covers subjects such as torsional resistance, calculation of deflections
and estimation of crack widths. These aspects of design are beyond the scope
of this book and Part 2, therefore, is not discussed here.
Part 3 of BS 8110 contains charts for use in the design of singly reinforced
beams, doubly reinforced beams and rectangular columns. A number of
design examples illustrating the use of these charts are included in the
relevant sections of this segment.
Irrespective of the element being designed, the
designer will need a basic understanding of the
following aspects which are discussed next:
1. symbols
2. basis of design
3. material properties
4. loading
5. stress–strain relationships
6. durability and fire resistance
SYMBOLS
Bending
SHEAR
Basis of design
The design of reinforced concrete elements to BS 8110 is
based on the limit state method. As discussed in Earlier, the
two principal categories of limit states normally considered
in design are:
The ultimate limit state models the behavior of the element
at failure due to a variety of mechanisms including
excessive bending, shear and compression or tension. The
serviceability limit state models the behavior of the member
at working loads and in the context of reinforced concrete
design is principally concerned with the limit states of
deflection and cracking.
Material properties
The two materials whose properties must be known
are concrete and steel reinforcement. In the case of
concrete, the property with which the designer is
primarily concerned is its compressive strength. For
steel, however, it is its tensile strength capacity which
is important.
Concrete is a mixture of water, coarse and fine aggregate and a cementitious binder
(normally Portland cement) which hardens to a stone like mass
The compressive strength of concrete is usually determined by carrying out
compression tests on 28-day-old, 100 mm cubes which have been prepared using a
standard procedure laid down in BS EN 12390-1 (2000). An alternative approach is
to use 100 mm diameter by 200 mm long cylinders. Irrespective of the shape of the
test specimen, if a large number of compression tests were carried out on samples
made from the same mix it would be found that a plot of crushing strength against
frequency of occurrence would approximate to a normal distribution.
- The characteristic strength of concrete is the strength of concrete specimens at 28 days of
curing, below which not more than 5% of the test results are expected to fall.
Testing Methods
where s.d. is the standard deviation. Thus assuming that the mean strength is 35 Nmm−2 and standard
deviation is 3 Nmm−2 , the characteristic strength of the mix is 35 − 1.64 × 3 = 30 Nmm−2
concrete strength classes in the range C20/25 and C50/60 can be designed using BS 8110
CHARACTERISTIC STRENGTH OF REINFORCEMENT, fy
• Concrete is strong in compression but weak in tension. Because of this it is normal practice to
provide steel reinforcement in those areas where tensile stresses in the concrete are most likely to
develop.
High-yield reinforcement is mostly used in practice nowadays
DESIGN STRENGTH
The resulting values are termed design strengths and it is the design strengths which are used to size
members.
CHARACTERISTIC LOAD
it is not possible to apply statistical principles to determine characteristic dead (Gk), imposed (Qk) and
wind (Wk) loads simply because there are insufficient data.
The design loads are used to calculate the distribution of bending moments and shear forces in the
structure usually using elastic analysis methods as discussed in before. At no point should they exceed the
corresponding design strengths of the member, otherwise failure of the structure may arise.
STRESS-STRAIN CURVE FOR CONCRETE
STRESS–STRAIN CURVE FOR STEEL REINFORCEMENT
FIRE PROTECTION
The covers in the table may need to be increased because of durability considerations. The minimum
dimensions of members for fire resistance are shown in the table below;
END OF LECTURE
