Strengthening of an existing reinforced concrete structure
Methods and Techniques:
It is very important to mention that there were several well known reinforced concrete specifications in the United States such as American Association of state Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and American Railway Engineering Association (AREA). But American Concrete Institute's building code requirements for structural concrete (ACI Code) is the most important code in the United States for reinforced concrete design. ACI Code is a statement of current food practice in reinforced concrete design, written in the form of a code or low so that various public bodies such as city councils can easily vote it into their building codes until it becomes legally enforceable in that area. In this way, ACI Code has been incorporated in to law by countless government organizations throughout the Unites States.
3.2 PROKON Structural Analysis and Design:
PROKON structural analysis and design is a useful tool for analysis and design of structures. PROKON program used in the analysis and design is a two months tool version down loaded from the Prokon site on the Internet.
The PROKON suite has two main components with distinct but supplementary functions:
· PROKON Calcpad: This is the main module from where it is launched the various analysis and design modules. Calcpad can also be used to build calcsheets with design notes, drawings and equations.
· PROKON analysis and design modules: The individual modules can be used to analyze and design typical structural and geotechnical elements. Design output can be sent to Calcpad and appended to your calcsheet.
When the program is started, it gives the user many options to deal with them. For example, the user can use PROKON software to deal with steel, connections, concrete, etc…. Concrete was selected from the options because we are dealing with reinforced concrete structure. Inside the concrete option, there are several sub-options such continues beams, post tensioned beams or slabs, several shapes of column design, several shapes of wall design, and section design. See Figure 3.1 below.
Figure 3.1: PROKON interface
Our project deals with continues beams and when the user choose this option from concrete, the following interface will be appeared and it is required to enter some inputs. First of all, it is required to enter the parameters that it is required to deal with (See Figure 3.2).
Figure 3.2: Parameters input
Next, it is required to enter the section dimensions of the beam as shown in Figure 3.3.
Figure 3.3: Section dimensions inputs
Then, it is required to enter the spans lengths as shown in Figure 3.4 below.
Figure 3.4: Spans lengths input
After that, all kinds of the loads should be entered in the load section except the own weight of the beam because the PROKON software will compute it automatically. In addition to that, all the loads should be unfactored because they will be taken into considerations later on from the program itself. (See Figure 3.5)
Figure 3.5: Loads input
Now, after all the inputs have been entered, the output results should be ready to get. All what it is needed to get the results is to click on view next the input and choose the output information that is required. (See Figures 3.6 & 3.7)
Figure 3.6: Elastic Deflection
Figure 3.7: Shear and Moment diagrams