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Prestressed Concrete Pile PM Analysis

1 Function
This application generates design PM interaction diagram for prestressed concrete pile sections. It also performs axial force and moment design point check based on users input. This application is developed based on Ultimate strength of prestressed concrete piles and columns by Arthur R. Anderson. It has the capability to consider pile slenderness effect. However, the method as described in the article above is very conservative for slenderness effect. It is strongly recommended to run analysis without any slenderness effect and consider the slenderness effect from demand side with moment magnification method etc.

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2 Home Page

You can click on launch button to start the application. If you have any questions on how to use this application, you can obtain this help document by clicking on tutorial button.

3 Menu Bar

Save Project: Save the current project to your local drive. Exit Project: Return to the home page. Help: Show the help document or download a sample project.

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4 Project Information Dialogue

This part allows you to input basic information about the project. The information you input here will be shown in the PDF analysis report.

5 Input Dialogue
5.1 Section View
The section view displays the section based on your input. Section dimension and coordinate information will show when you move mouse over it. The bar will be highlighted when you click on it and the corresponding bar information in the table on Reinforcement tab will also be highlighted. By default, moment is in the negative direction of axis 3 which means the top part of the section is the compression side. Global X axis is parallel to local axis 3 and Y axis is parallel to local axis 2.

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5.2 Shape Tab

Section: The section input includes section shape and shape dimension. It supports three different shapes: circle, rectangle and octagon. Void: The void input defines the hollow part of the section. It supports three different shapes: circle, rectangle and octagon. The CG of void always coincides with CG of the section.

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5.3 Reinforcement Tab

Table: The table defines all the reinforcement information: bar x coordinate, bar y coordinate and bar area. It supports copy/paste functions from and to Excel file by using Ctrl+c/Ctrl+v shortcut keys. Add: Add a new row at the end of the table. Delete: Delete the row you select. Insert: Insert a new row at where you selects. Clear: Clear all the contents in the table. Add circular layout bars:

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The dialogue above will show when you press Add circular layout bars button. This dialogue is used to quickly generate bars which are uniformly distributed around a circle. It requires the input of single bar area, number of bars, circle diameter and circle CG location.

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5.4 Other input Tab

Material: fc: Concrete compressive strength. cu: Maximum useable concrete compressive strain. The value is usually 0.003 or 0.004. fpu: Steel ultimate stress. The application only supports 270ksi strands at this time. Es: Steel modulus of elasticity. Strand prestrain: The prestrain in the strand from prestress. Slenderness: Effective length factor: The K factor based on pile boundary conditions. Unsupported length: Unsupported pile length. Resistance facotrs: You could use the built in resistance factors for different design code and confinement type. Or you can input your own values. Loads:

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This table defines the axial (Pu) and moment (Mu) points you want to check. Refer to reinforcement tab for the use of buttons below the table. It supports copy/paste functions from and to Excel file by using Ctrl+c/Ctrl+v shortcut keys.

5.5 Validate Button

Press this button to validate your input before you run the analysis.

5.6 Analyze Button

Press this button to run the analysis. A progress bar will show when the anlysis starts and will disappear once the analysis is done. The analysis results will show in the output dialogue.

6 Output Dialogue

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Chart: The chart plots the axial force and moment interaction diagram. It also plots the design points you input. The red circle on the plot will move along the curve and display the corresponding value as you press the scroll buttons above. Table: The table displays the design point checking results. Pu: Axial force from input. Mu: Moment from input. Mn: Moment capacity corresponding to Pu. Mn/Mu: Capacity/demand ratio. Generate PDF report: A PDF format report will be generated by pressing this button. Export output data to excel: An Excel CSV file including axial force and moment data will be generated by pressing this button. You can use Excel to open this file.