Cracking Analysis of Pre-stressed Steel–concrete Composite Girder at Negative Moment Zone

In order to analyze the influence position of prestressed reinforcement on the cracking load of composite girders, scale test and finite element analysis is used to study the cracking behavior of prestressed composite beam at the negative moment zone. The load–deflection curve and the cracking law of the scaled beam are obtained from the experimental results. The influence law of the resultant point and the spacing change through the symmetrical axis of the prestressed beam on the cracking load is obtained through the finite element parametric analysis. Furthermore, the prototype beam's mechanical performance in terms of the scaled test data is verified by both similarity theory and the prototype beam's numerical model. The results show that: Under different prestress levels, the cracking load is larger when the resultant force point of prestressed reinforcement on one side of the concrete slab's symmetric axis is within 0.15 ~ 0.50 times of slab half-width. In addition, the cracking moment of the specimen can be increased up to 11% by optimizing the prestress arrangement.