VTOP – An Improved Software For Design
Optimization Of Prestressed Concrete Beams
Author(s)
S. Hernandez, D. Marcos, A. N. Fontan & J. Diaz
Abstract
Optimum tendon layout of prefabricated prestressed concrete beams was an early
application of design optimization methodologies. However, most of the
approaches found in the literature were not suitable to be implemented in real life
bridge engineering. To fill the existing gap research has been conducted in past
years by the authors to optimize prefabricated concrete beams formulating the
problem in such a way that could be applied directly by bridge designers in beam
and slab bridge decks. The software produced, labelled VTOP, contains the
necessary capabilities for daily applications and possesses a user friendly
graphical interface. This paper describes the problem formulation carried out and
includes several examples to show the efficiency of the computer code
implemented. Some of them are examples of single prefabricated concrete
beams, and also an example showing the overall analysis of a bridge deck and
the subsequent optimization of the prefabricated beam subjected to the internal
forces produced by the external loading is included in the paper.
1 Beam and slab bridge decks
Beam and slab decks are used for a wide variety of modern bridges. Many
highway overpasses or urban bridges are designed with such arrangement. While
the upper slab is always made in concrete, beams can be of steel or concrete.
Also concrete beams can be prefabricated or built at the bridge site at the same
time than slab producing a monolithic deck. But this latter technique, while
sometime common in past times, is rarely used nowadays. Currently concrete
beams are made in factories by means of a delicate mixture of cement and
aggregates that produces a material with quite high strength to compressive
stresses. The design is completed with prestressed steel tendons that translate
Keywords
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