Reliability analysis of precast prestressed hollow core slabs

Abstract

The precast concrete elements encompass uncertainty, due to randomness of the applied loads, concrete characteristics and dimensional inaccuracies. The proposed work focuses on reliability analysis of precast Prestressed Hollow Core (PHC) slabs in terms of statistical properties of the contributing parameters using Monte Carlo simulation. The random variables relating to geometrical dimensions of PHC slab such as effective depth (dp) and web-width (bw) for different grades of concrete (fc) are considered for analysis. The numerical models on ANSYS APDL release18.1 and Concise Beam ver.4.7 are validated with the experimental results with respect to failure load and deflection. The bending moments corresponding to failure loads under single Line Loading (LL) at mid span, Two Line Loading (TLL) and Uniformly Distributed Loading (UDL) cases were evaluated by modelling using Concise Beam software. The reliability analysis was implemented by developing a program in MATLAB R2015a software. It was observed that there is consistent level of reliability in the design methodology adopted in ACI-318.