Concrete Basics
Design of concrete beams
M ost concrete design textbooks
include a chapter on how con-
crete behaves in bending. Why talk
about concrete bending when the all-
too-common cracks in concrete show
that it obviously doesn’t bend?
Although plain (unreinforced) con-
crete doesn’t bend—at least not
much—reinforced concrete does, and
the design of concrete beams is based
on how this bending takes place.
First, a few definitions:
Stress is the force (or load)
applied to a unit of area (such as
pounds per square inch) in either
compression or tension.
Strain is how much a material
stretches or compresses per unit of
length when stress is applied; it’s typi-
cally shown in units of inches per inch.
We usually assume that concrete will
fail at a strain of 0.003 inches per inch.
Compressive strength is how
much stress a material can handle in
compression; concrete’s high compres-
sive strength is one of its most valu-
able properties.
Tensile strength is how much
stress a material can handle in ten-
sion; concrete’s tensile strength is low
(about 10% to 15% of the compres-
sive strength), but steel’s tensile
strength is high.
Modulus of elasticity is the ratio
of stress divided by strain for a given
material and is approximately con-
stant at lower stress levels; this value
indicates how much the material
deflects under stress in either com-
pression or tension—a high modulus
of elasticity indicates that a material
is very stiff.
Beams are structural members
that span between two supports; a
grade beam, for example, spans
between two caissons or piers.
When a beam carries a load, even
Publication #C01K064 Copyright © 2001 Hanley-Wood, LLC All rights reserved
if that load is only its own weight, it
bends in the middle. This bending
causes the material in the top part of
the beam to be compressed and the
material in the bottom part of the
beam to be stretched in tension. We
therefore take advantage of the prop-
erties of the two materials used in
reinforced concrete—we let concrete
handle the compression and reinforc-
ing steel handle the tension.
To simplify the design, we assume
that the tensile stress acts through the
center of the reinforcing steel, and we
completely ignore any tensile strength
contributed to the beam by the con-
crete. Note that this means that in
order for the steel to start working,
the concrete across the bottom of the
beam must crack first. We assume
that the compressive stress in the con-
crete is carried uniformly across the
top portion of the concrete—another
oversimplification, but close enough
for most designs.
To get the beam to behave the
way we want it to, we adjust the
Concrete beam
Load
Section
Section of
reinforced
concrete beam Strain in concrete
Effective
depth
Strain in steel
amount of concrete (size of the beam)
and the amount of steel (number and
size of rebars). The condition is bal-
anced when the strain in the concrete
and steel is such that each material
fails at the same time—that is, if the
concrete crushes from compression at
the same time the steel yields in ten-
sion. If the amount of steel is greater
than needed for a balanced condition,
the beam is over-reinforced and will
fail suddenly, without deflecting,
when the strain in the concrete reach-
es 0.003. If the amount of steel is less
than the balanced amount, the steel
will yield before the concrete crushes,
and there will be noticeable deflection
before failure. If a beam is going to
fail, a ductile (nonabrupt) failure is
better because it gives some warning.
This is why the building code usually
limits the amount of steel in a beam
to 75% of the balanced amount.
All design is based on what the
legal building code (usually the ACI
318 Building Code) dictates. But the
Code is based on these basic principles.
Neutral axis
Reinforcing
steel
Strain Stress
0.85 f'c
0.85 Compression
Neutral
axis
Tension