Development of a Self-Supported Portable Pre-Tensioning System for Slab Panels

Abstract

 Application of pre-stressed pre-cast elements has gained a lot of popularity over the years. The advantage obtained from pre-cast construction is the high control over its quality, and easy and fast on site construction. The short comings encountered in the application of such elements have been; the requirement of heavy machinery for pre-stressing and the transportation of these elements from yard to site. In order to address these shortcomings, an improved pre-casting equipment has been proposed in this paper. A steel frame consisting of two ISMC300 sections connected by a number of ISMB300 sections has been developed for pre-stressing of concrete slab panels. The connection between both the ISMC sections have been designed such that the frame can be dismantled and re-assembled easily, thereby making this equipment portable. This equipment allows us to relocate the yard closer to the site at minimum expenses which eventually reduces the transportation cost. The cost of this equipment turns out to be economical as compared to our conventional pre-stressing system. The functionality of the frame elements has been checked using finite element analysis performed using commercially available software, SAP200.

Cite this Article

Syed A, Sonparote RS. Development of a Self-Supported Portable Pre-Tensioning System for Slab Panels. Journal of Experimental & Applied Mechanics. 2016; 7(1): 29–33p.