Title: Stochastic Model of Creep Deflection of Reinforced Concrete Beams

Author(s): Jack R. Benjamin, C. Allin Cornell, and Bernard L. Gabrielsen

Publication: Symposium Paper

Volume: 12

Issue:

Appears on pages(s): 557-580

Keywords:

DOI: 10.14359/16733

Date: 1/1/1965

Abstract:
The aim of this work is to predict both the average value and the variance of the creep deflection of reinforced concrete beams under sustained loads. Two quite distinct problems emerge, the determination of a probabilistic model to predict the creep behavior of a concrete prism under axial compression, and the introduction of this description of material behavior into an analysis of the bending of a beam under an arbitrary vertical loading. The model of the creep mechanism of concrete is a simplified version of an earlier model suggested by one of the authors. Stochastic processes, namely varieties of the Markov birth process, are employed to represent both the viscous flow of the cement paste and the delayed-elastic effects caused by fluids -- water and viscous paste-initially trapped within the elastic skeleton of crystals and aggregate. In a manner similar to that developed by another of the authors for the bending of homogeneous beams of stochastically viscoelastic material, the bending of a reinforced concrete beam is formulated. The creep response of a unit length of concrete to a unit stress is assumedto be a stochastic process of the type presented in the first part of the paper. These arguments lead to the desired results, formulas which predict the mean and variance of the deflection of any point on the beam at any time. In addition, spatial and temporal covariance functions are obtained; the latter permits the engineer to take advantage of an early observation of the creep deflection to alter his prediction of later deflections and to reduce the variance of these predictions.