Estimation of the bar stress based on crack width measurements in reinforced concrete structures

Estimating the stress of reinforcing bars and its variations in service conditions can be useful to determine the reserve capacity of structures or to assess the risk of fatigue in the reinforcement. This paper investigates the use crack width measurements to estimate the stress in the bars. In existing structures, crack width formulations can be used to estimate the stress in the reinforcement from crack width measurements, profiting from additional information that can be measured in-situ, such as the crack spacing. Recent experimental results show that the values of the mean bond stress typically considered in code formulations overestimate the actual bond stresses activated in cracked concrete specimens. This paper presents the results of an experimental program consisting of reinforced concrete ties and beams instrumented with Digital Image Correlation and fiber optical measurements. The results confirm the differences with typically assumed bond stresses. A formulation to estimate the bond stresses in service conditions is derived from the results of the numerical integration of a previously developed local bond-slip relationship. Their pertinence for the estimation of the stress in the reinforcement from the measured crack width is evaluated with satisfactory results for monotonic loading and for the maximum force in cyclic tests.