Deformational behavior of reinforced concrete beams under service loading conditions

Abstract

The paper presents the results of an experimental study conducted on model-size reinforced concrete beams aiming at quantifying the effect of cracking under various types of loading on their deflection responses. A central, third-points, uniformly distributed, and a combination of a central and uniformly distributed loads are considered. The test results indicate that, at the same level of maximum moment, the effective moment of inertia is significantly affected by the type of loading. A general model is proposed for estimating the effective moment of inertia of reinforced concrete beams under any arbitrary symmetrical loading. The accuracy of the model is checked by comparing with test results available in literature.