Pre-Stressed Concrete Panels under Variable Environmental Conditions

Abstract

Environmental effects, humidity and temperature changes in particular, sig nificantly affect the stress distribution in concrete elements. The surface layers can be exposed to tensile stresses, which may not be obvious, when a conven tional analysis is applied. An analysis capable of calculating more precisely the stress distribution in concrete elements is presented in the paper. The given example of a pre-stressed floor panel shows the stress variations in two cross- sections during the first 6 months of its performance.