UNIFIED DESIGN RECOMMENDATIONS FOR REINFORCED, PRESTRESSED, AND PARTIALLY PRESTRESSED CONCRETE BENDING AND COMPRESSION MEMBERS

A set of unified recommendations related to the reinforcement in reinforced, prestressed, and partially prestressed concrete flexural and compression members is presented. The recommendations address minimum and maximum levels of reinforcement in flexural and compression members, the percent of moment redistribution in continuous members, and the prediction of stress in the prestressing steel at ultimate bending resistance for bonded or unbonded tendons. The proposed recommendations are tuned to lead to numerical results primarily in accordance with the ACI Building Code, with reinforced concrete considered the main reference base; however, the provisions are nondimensional and can be applied to any code. Moreover, all assumptions made are within the philosophy of the ACI Building Code, and the notation is generally the same.