Numerical study on bending response of precast segmental concrete beams externally prestressed with FRP tendons

Abstract This study numerically investigates the bending response of dry key-jointed precast segmental concrete girders/beams (PSCBs) prestressed with external fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) tendons by using commercial finite element analysis (FEA) software Abaqus/CAE. The experimentally-validated model was used to conduct an intensive parametric analysis with a focus on the second-order effect. There has not been a similar numerical study of PSCBs with external FRP tendons in the published literature yet. The results showed that due to the rectilinear rigid-body bending shape, the behavior of PSCBs with external tendons was similar to that with internal tendons only if placing the deviators next to the opening joints. The second-order effect on the beam’s behavior and the harping effect on the tendon stress at deviators became more obvious when the deviators were located away from the opening joints. Both the second-order and harping effect were proportionate to the beam’s displacement. Therefore, using a high reinforcing index (ω) or a low span-to-depth ratio (L/dp) could mitigate the second-order and harping effect at the ultimate stage because the ultimate displacement of the beam decreased when increasing ω or reducing L/dp. Commonly-used CFRP tendons (Young’s modulus Ep = 145 GPa) were found to be the optimum to replace steel tendons in PSCBs with external tendons because they offered the PSCBs similar strength and ductility compared to steel tendons. The use of high-modulus CFRP tendons (e.g. Ep = 200 GPa) improved the stiffness and strength of PSCBs but greatly reduced the beam’s ductility. Lastly, the analytical analyses showed that the existing models yielded unconservative estimations of the effective depth (dpu) and stress (fpu) of external FRP tendons at the ultimate stage in PSCBs.