EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF STRAINS ON WELDED WIRES IN THIN REINFORCED CONCRETE PAVEMENT

Abstract

This paper presents the experimental results of strain and stresses in steel bars gotten from a full instrumented reinforced concrete pavement experimentally built on the Federal Highway BR 232/PE, in the Northeast of Brazil. Contact strain gages were placed at several edge longitudinal and tangential wire reinforcements and load tests were accomplished one month later in order to check design stresses. Results are very clarifying and show how steel bars are tensioned and share flexural responses of slabs between concrete and steel reinforcement. This kind of solution, rarely speculated in past technical literature or through field experiments, seems to be an easy and effective alternative for constructing thin concrete slabs when required due to limitations on grade levels, especially for whitetopping constructions. The bars, designed using conventional reinforced concrete design theory, did not present any case of over deformation inducing its fracture when comparing strains limits and field induced strains by loads.