The behaviour of actual prestressed concrete beams under static load up to failure has been experimentally investigated. The experimental testing includes five types of precast concrete beams with different ratios of prestressed and classical reinforcements (only prestressed reinforcement, dominant prestressed reinforcement and classical reinforcement, equal prestressed and classical reinforcements, dominant classical reinforcement and prestressed reinforcement, and only classical reinforcement) i.e. with different levels of prestressing force. Twenty-three beams were tested. The total amount of reinforcement in each beam was selected to provide approximately equal ultimate bending bearing capacity. The deflections, concrete stresses, stresses in classical and prestressed reinforcements and concrete cracks were monitored until the beams collapsed. It was concluded that by increasing the level of prestressing, the serviceability limit state of the beams was improved. The optimal level of prestressing should be selected based on the relevant criteria for each individual structure.
The paper presents the results of experimental tests with a numerical comparison of some typical composite element systems. Two different kinds of elements were tested: composite steel‐concrete and composite wood‐concrete elements. Deflections at midspan under monotonously increasing static load on simply supported beams were measured. The affects of different types of composite connections on the results were researched. In numerical tests the structure was modeled with two‐dimensional plane elements. The composite surface was modeled with two‐dimensional contact (interface) elements for the continuous connection simulation and modified beam elements for the discrete connection simulation. The applied material models include the most important nonlinear effects of concrete, steel and wood behavior, as well as the nonlinear behavior of the composite surface at the connection. The achieved results of the developed numerical model were compared with the results obtained through the experimental test.
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