Flexural ductility and deformability of reinforced and prestressed concrete sections

In designing a flexural member for structural safety, both the flexural strength and ductility have to be considered. For this purpose, the flexural ductility of reinforced concrete sections has been studied quite extensively. As there have been relatively few studies on the flexural ductility of prestressed concrete sections, it is not well understood how various structural parameters affect the flexural ductility. In the present study, the full-range flexural responses of reinforced and prestressed concrete sections are analyzed taking into account the nonlinearity and stress-path dependence of constitutive materials. From the numerical results, the effects of steel content, yield strength and degree of prestressing on the yield curvature and ultimate curvature are evaluated. It is found that whilst the concept of flexural ductility in terms of the ductility factor works well for reinforced sections, it can be misleading when applied to prestressed concrete sections. For prestressed concrete sections, the concept of flexural deformability in terms of ultimate curvature times overall depth of section may be more appropriate.