An analytical-numerical procedure for cracking and time-dependent effects in continuous composite beams under service load

An analytical-numerical procedure has been presented in this paper to take into account the nonlinear effects of concrete cracking and time-dependent effects of creep and shrinkage in the concrete portion of the continuous composite beams under service load. The procedure is analytical at the element level and numerical at the structural level. The cracked span length beam element consisting of uncracked zone in middle and cracked zones near the ends has been proposed to reduce the computational effort. The progressive nature of cracking of concrete has been taken into account by division of the time into a number of time intervals. Closed form expressions for stiffness matrix, load vector, crack lengths and mid-span deflection of the beam element have been presented in order to reduce the computational effort and bookkeeping. The procedure has been validated by comparison with the experimental and analytical results reported elsewhere and with FEM. The procedure can be readily extended for the analysis of composite building frames where saving in computational effort would be very considerable.