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Virginia Polytechnic Institute

The comparison of working stress design, ultimate strength design and limit design theories of reinforced concrete

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Reinforced concrete structures were originally designed on the elastic behavior of the materials by the "Working Stress Design Theory". As reinforced concrete structures became more widely used, another theory based on the inelastic behavior of materials was developed and is commonly known as the “Ultimate Strength Design Theory.” Recently, the attention has been focused on another design theory known as “Limit Design Theory.” This theory is based on the redistribution of moments at high loads. This thesis presents the comparison of these three theories of reinforced concrete. The members of an interior panel of a continuous framed structure are designed by the working stress design method and then a few members are analyzed by the above three design methods. The comparison has been made on the basis of the live load as a common denominator. The results of the analyses show that the overall increase in live load is 13 percent by ultimate strength analysis and 52 percent by limit design analysis. This further shows that limit design is a more efficient method for statically indeterminate structures.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Science
Level thesis:degree_level
masters
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Civil Engineering
Department dc:contributor.department
Civil Engineering
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Polytechnic Institute
Year dc:date.issued
1964

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Rathi, Prabhulal Jaima

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright
Language dc:language.iso
en_US

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Handle dc:identifier.uri
http://hdl.handle.net/10919/76356
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/76356

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
related terms
citation

Rathi, Prabhulal Jaima. The comparison of working stress design, ultimate strength design and limit design theories of reinforced concrete. masters thesis, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 1964. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/76356