Short-term deformation analysis of reinforced beams made of lightweight concrete

Abstract

This paper investigates the accuracy of selected design codes predicting deflections of reinforced beams made of lightweight concrete (LWC). Three well-known design codes, namely European EN, American ACI, and Lithuanian STR have been considered. The moment-curvature data of 26 LWC beams reported by the authors and other investigators were used for the analysis. The authors’ viewpoint is that a prediction is safe, if the code overestimates the deflection. Unfortunately, the obtained results reveal that the design code models were unable to predict deformations with acceptable level of safety: the average prediction errors (on the unsafe side) are equal to 26%, 9%, and 18% for the European, American, and Lithuanian codes, respectively.