Nonlinear geometric and material analysis of prestressed concrete general shell structures

Abstract

In a previous paper [ Comput. Struct. 46, 905–916 (1993)], a general formulation was presented for the nonlinear material and geometric, instantaneous and long-term nonlinear analysis of prestressed concrete structures. Such a formulation is based on a discrete treatment of the prestressing tendons where both the prestress geometric and mechanic effects are introduced consistently with the displacement formulation of the finite element method. In the present paper the application of this formulation to the nonlinear analysis of prestressed concrete shells of general geometry is discussed. Special concern is devoted to the definition of the space curved shell and tendon geometries, which potentially require large amounts of data preparation. In order to minimize this requirement, a set of automatic procedures have been adopted which, using an analytical description as data, generate a complete work interpolation for both the shell middle surface and the tendon axial curves. Finally, three numerical examples are presented through which, by comparison with existing experimental results, the efficiency and the reliability of the method are shown.