Schlanke vorgespannte Stützen aus UHPC - Experimentelle Untersuchung und Nachrechnung

Slender, prestressed high performance concrete columns - experimental investigation and calculation

The outstanding compression strength of Ultra high performance concrete makes this material perfectly apt for struts. Even columns with a high risk of buckling will benefit from UHPC, especially if they are centrically prestressed. The slenderness of such "Architectural Columns" can considerably increase without loss of load carrying capacity. Since that extended slenderness is far from fitting into the application field of the current design regulations, those have to be evaluated with respect to their suitability for such novel members. If required they should also be adapted.
This paper aims at the fundamental understanding of the load carrying behaviour of pre-tensioned columns made of fibre reinforced UHPC under compression with the same load eccentricity at both ends. Therefore, full-scale experiments and their recalculation are carried out. A reliable evaluation of the ductility of columns needs sufficient experimental results beyond the ultimate load. For this reason a special method of loading control was developed and applied. The recalculations are carried out by the use of commercial software and also with own software which makes sure that the consideration of creep and shrinkage works as desired.