Long-term behavior of timber-concrete composite beams. II: Numerical analysis and simplified evaluation

Abstract

This second part of two companion papers investigates the contribution of different rheological phenomena and thermohygrometric variations on long-term behavior of timber–concrete composite beams (TCCs) in outdoor conditions. The numerical algorithm presented and validated against two experimental tests in the first part is employed with this aim. Such a model fully considers all rheological phenomena and, therefore, leads to rigorous solutions. Effects on the beam response include the creep and mechanosorptive creep of both timber and connection, along with concrete creep and shrinkage, and may markedly increase the elastic deflection due to live load. The inelastic strains due to yearly and daily variations of environmental conditions (temperature and relative humidity) produce an important fluctuation of the deflection. A simplified method, which is suitable for practical design of TCCs under long-term loading, is at last proposed. The effects of load, concrete shrinkage, and inelastic strains due to environmental variations are evaluated one by one using approximate formulas and are then superimposed. Creep and mechanosorptive creep are taken into account by adopting modified elastic moduli. The reliability of the proposed method is checked by way of some comparisons with numerical results. The applicability for the case of TCCs in heated indoor conditions is also discussed.