INFLUENCE OF PRESTRESS AXIAL FORCES IN THE DYNAMIC PARAMETERS OF CONCRETE BEAMS
Operational modal analysis, prestressed concrete, modal parameters, random vibrations
The identification of the prestress force in reinforced concrete elements is a aspect of interest of diverse studies, mostly those related to structural health monitoring, maintenance and recovering of structures and the improvement of structural behaviour. A well defused technic to evaluate the prestress force in structural element is the Operational Modal Analysis. However, different studies of operational modal analysis of prestressed concrete presents different approaches to how the prestress force influences the stiffness of prestressed elements, which is an important variable on the estimation of the actual prestress force. Thus, the proposed research will access through the operational modal analysis the influence of the axial prestress force in the natural frequencies of multiple prestressed concrete beam of a future road viaduct. Field measurements will take place before, during and after the prestress of each beam. Two multiaxial accelerometers will be used to acquire a 500Hz sampling rate frequency. The measurement data will be processed in a software developed in Fortran which uses the Frequency Domain Decomposition to stablish the natural frequencies. The natural frequencies spectrum of the measured pre, during and post prestressing data obtained through the frequency domain decomposition will be compared for each beam analysed in order to access the influence of the prestress force on their stiffness. It is expected to observe from the comparisons of the pre, during and post prestressing a growth of the natural frequency values of the beams, thereby representing a growth of the stiffness due the prestress force.