Expansive soil-structure interaction and its sensitive analysis

Several groups of direct shear tests of Nanning expansive soil samples were carded out by improved direct shear apparatus. The results of the characteristics of the ultimate shear stress and residual shear stress at the interface of expansive soil-structure are presented as follows： linear relation can approximately reflect changes between the both shear stress and the three factors： vertical load, water content and dry density, just different degrees from each other; increasing the vertical load from 25 kPa to 100 kPa （up by 300%） can cause the average increase of ultimate shear stress from 58% （for samples with 1.61 g/cm^3） to 80% （for samples with 1.76 g/cm^3）, and an close average increase of 180% for the residual shear stress; increasing the water content from 14.1% to 20.8% （up by 47.5%） can cause the average decrease of the ultimate shear stress from 40% （for samples with 25 kPa） to 80% （for samples with 100 kPa）, and the average decrease from 25% （for samples with 25 kPa） to 30% （for samples with 100 kPa） for the residual shear stress; increasing the dry density from 1.61 g/cm^3 to 1.76 g/cm^3 （up by 9.3%） can cause the average increase of ultimate shear stress from 92% （for samples with 25 kPa） to 138% （for samples with 100 kPa）, and an average increase of 4% for the residual shear stress. Sensitive analysis was further made to explain reasons causing the differences of the both shear stress induced by the three factors.

Ultimate stress increase in unbonded tendons in prestressed concrete beams

Since the assumption of plane sections cannot be applied to the strain of unbonded tendons in prestressed concrete beams subjected to loadings,a moment-curvature nonlinear analysis method is used to develop analytical programs from stress increases in unbonded tendons at the ultimate limit state.Based on the results of model testing and simulation analysis,equations are proposed to predict the stress increase in tendons at the ultimate state in simple or continuous beams of partially prestressed concrete,considering the loading type,non-prestressed reinforcement index βp,prestressing reinforcement index βs,and span-depth ratio L/h as the basic parameters.Results of 380 beams studied here and test results for 35 simple beams obtained by the China Academy of Building Research were compared with those from prediction equations given in codes and other previous studies.The comparison reveals that the values predicted by the proposed equations agree well with experimental results.