Engineering Structures 34 (2012) 259270

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Engineering Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/engstruct

Flexural test of precast high-strength reinforced concrete pile prestressed with

unbonded bars arranged at the center of the cross-section
Mitsuyoshi Akiyama a,, Satoshi Abe b, Nao Aoki c, Motoyuki Suzuki d
a

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Waseda University, 3-4-1 Okubo, Shinjuku-Ku, Tokyo 169-8555, Japan
Technical Research Institute, Obayashi Corporation, 4-6 Shimokiyoto, Kiyose, Tokyo 204-9558, Japan
c
East Nippon Expressway Company Limited, 3-3-2 Kasumigaseki, Chiyodaku, Tokyo 100-8979, Japan
d
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tohoku University, 6-6-06 Aramaki-Aza-Aoba, Aobaku, Sendai 980-8579, Japan
b

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 1 December 2009
Revised 2 September 2011
Accepted 2 September 2011
Available online 4 November 2011
Keywords:
Precast pile
High-strength concrete
High-strength steel
Flexural strength
Carbon-ber sheet

a b s t r a c t
In this study, a prestressed reinforced concrete pile that uses high-strength material to increase the piles
exural capacity was developed. The main structural characteristics of the developed pile include (1) the
neutral axis is constantly near the centroidal axis of the pile, even if the longitudinal reinforcement yields
due to a exural moment, because the pile has a high axial compressive force that is induced by prestressed steel bars, and hence, the concrete in the compression region can contribute to increasing the
exural strength of the pile; and (2) the exural strength of the pile increases because the high-strength
concrete is conned by high-strength spirals and carbon-ber sheets in combination with concrete inlling, and, together, these modications provide a sufciently high lateral-connement pressure.
The results of bending tests demonstrate that the proposed prestressed reinforced concrete pile with
carbon-ber sheets and concrete inlling had a much higher exural capacity than a conventional precast
concrete pile. In addition, an analytical approach is presented that can be used to obtain the relationship
between the bending moment and the curvature of the proposed pile. Even if concrete bridge systems are
constructed on strata that can experience soil liquefaction, such as very soft soil, bridge foundations that
use the proposed piles could remain undamaged under the design seismic action.
2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
In the seismic design of concrete bridge systems, a plastic hinge
must be introduced at the bottom of each bridge pier rather than at
the pile foundation. This is an important concept in capacity design
to help guarantee the rehabilitation of the bridge after a large
earthquake [1,2]; however, if concrete bridge systems are
constructed on strata (such as very soft soil) that can experience
soil liquefaction in a severe earthquake, it is difcult to prevent
yielding of the pile foundation. Numerous structures with precast
concrete-pile foundations in reclaimed ground were seriously
damaged by the 1995 HyogokenNambu Earthquake in Japan
[3,4]. Field investigations and numerical analyses of some of the
damaged concrete-pile foundations in reclaimed ground have been
conducted to clarify the damage-process mechanism therein.
Based on a three-dimensional numerical simulation, Uzuoka
et al. [5] reported that precast, prestressed concrete piles in a liqueed soil failed during this severe earthquake due to a lack of
Corresponding author. Tel.: +81 3 52862694; fax: +81 3 52863485.
E-mail addresses: akiyama617@waseda.jp (M. Akiyama), abe.satoshi.ha
@obayashi.co.jp (S. Abe), n.aoki.aa@e-nexco.co.jp (N. Aoki), suzuki@civil.tohoku.ac.jp (M. Suzuki).
0141-0296/$ - see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.engstruct.2011.09.007

exural strength and ductility capacity. In order to maximize

post-event operability and minimize the repair costs of bridges, increased attention should be paid to improving the exural strength
and ductility capacity of precast concrete piles that are driven into
liqueable soil.
Fig. 1a depicts the strain distribution in a concrete pile that is subjected to a bending moment at the point where the strain of the extreme compression ber reaches 0.0035. Because the dead loadinduced axial force that acts on the pile foundations of most bridges
in Japan is so small, as shown in Fig. 1, the neutral axis of the pile that
is subjected to the bending moment becomes closer to the extreme
compression ber as the bending moment increases. Therefore, even
though concrete with a compressive strength of over 100 MPa is
used in these piles, it cannot contribute to increasing the exural
strength of the pile. In this paper, a new method for increasing the
exural strength of concrete piles was developed, wherein unbonded prestressing steel bars are incorporated at the center of the crosssection of the reinforced concrete piles. As shown in Fig. 1b, in comparison to conventional concrete piles that are subject to small axial
forces, the neutral axis of the developed pile is much closer to the
centroidal axis because of the prestress that is provided by the unbonded prestressed steel bars; thus, the compression region increases
in cross-section and can improve the exural strength of the pile. In

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M. Akiyama et al. / Engineering Structures 34 (2012) 259270

(a)
0.0035
xb,1

Small axial stress

Small axial stress

strain
xb,1 < xb,2

(b)

where, xb,1 and xb,2 are the distances from the extreme compression fiber to the neutral axis of
bending

0.0035
Axial stress provided
by unbonded
prestressing steel bars

xb,2

Axial stress provided

by unbonded
prestressing steel bars

strain
Fig. 1. Effect of the piles axial force on the strain distribution.

the developed pile, concrete with a compressive strength of

100 MPa, a longitudinal reinforcement with a yield strength of
700 MPa and a transverse reinforcement with a yield strength of
1450 MPa was used. In addition, carbon-ber sheets were used to
prevent spalling of the cover concrete. The effects of test variables,
such as the number of longitudinal bars, the prestress level and
the presence or absence of carbon-ber sheets, on the exural
strength of the proposed pile were investigated through a series of
static bending tests. An analytical approach that can be used to obtain the relationship between the moment and curvature of the proposed pile is presented.
This paper primarily investigates exure of the developed pile
under monotonic loading with special emphasis on the exural
strength; hence, the effects of the experimental variables on the
ductility capacity and residual displacement of the pile are outside
the scope of the current investigation. These effects will be examined in a future study using cyclic load tests.
2. Prestressed reinforced concrete piles using high-strength
materials and carbon-ber sheets
A total of 17 piles, each 400 mm in diameter and 4000 mm long,
were tested under a static bending test. Table 1 summarizes the
material properties of the proposed piles. Examples of a cross-section of the proposed pile are provided in Fig. 2. In order to produce
the proposed pile, (1) a hollow pile was molded from high-strength
concrete using centrifugal force. The centrifugal force was applied as
shown in Fig. 3 for 15.5 min. All of the piles were removed from the
steel mold after being steam-cured for the rst 12 h and were subsequently air-cured until testing. Then, (2) prestressing steel bars with
a sheath were inserted into the center of the pile. (3) For some specimens, concrete inlling (denoted Con-B in Fig. 2) was placed in
the hollow of the pile, whereas (4), for other specimens, carbon-ber
sheets were attached to the pile surface. Finally, (5) prestress was
provided by tightening the nuts with a torque wrench before releasing the jack under the monitoring of a strain gauge that was attached
to the prestressing steel bars. Some of the specimens did not have
concrete inlling and/or carbon-ber sheets. The sheath was not
lled with grout in any of the piles.
As shown in Fig. 2, because the ratio of the area of the concrete
cover to that of the core concrete in Con-A is not small, it is important
to prevent spalling of the concrete cover that is used to increase the
exural strength, even after the cover is damaged. Over the past decade, there has been an increasing interest in the use of ber reinforced polymer (FRP) in the repairing, retrotting, strengthening,
and new construction of concrete components. FRP can provide lateral conning pressure to the internal concrete of FRP, and the

modeling of sections that are conned by FRP reinforcement has

been examined [68]. In this study, unidirectional carbon-ber
sheets were used to investigate the effect of conning the concrete
cover with such sheets on the resultant exural strength of the pile.
The carbon-ber sheet can only affect the piles response to a circumferential stress. Therefore, the carbon-ber sheets crack in response to tensile stress that is caused by a bending moment.
Previous studies have shown that the axial load level signicantly
affects the exural behavior, especially the ductility, of highstrength reinforced concrete columns [911]. This should be considered in determining the target prestress level of specimens, which is
expressed as the axial force that is provided by the unbonded prestressing steel bars divided by the cross-sectional area of the pile. Because, in terms of capacity design, a bridge foundation would be
designed to remain undamaged under design seismic action, in this
study target prestress levels were determined by taking into account
only the number and the specied tensile strain of prestressed steel
bars. As shown in Table 1, target prestress levels ranged from 0 to
21.0 MPa. To insure clearance between prestressing steel bars, there
number of prestressing steel bars arranged at the center of the crosssection must be no more than three for the pile with a diameter of
400 mm. In addition, the manufacturer of the prestressing steel bars
species that the maximum tensile strain during providing the prestress should be less than 65% of its designed yielding strain. Therefore, the maximum prestress level provided by three prestressing
steel bars for a pile with a diameter of 400 mm is approximately
21 MPa. Because the prestress was provided just before testing, the
long-term loss of prestress in the proposed pile could not be evaluated from this experiment.
The main structural characteristics of the developed pile are
that (1) the neutral axis is constantly near the centroidal axis of
the pile, even if longitudinal reinforcements yield due to a exural
moment; this occurs because the pile has a high axial compressive
force that is provided by the unbonded prestressed steel bars. Thus,
the concrete in the compression zone can contribute to increasing
the exural strength of the pile. (2) In addition, the strain of the
prestressed steel bars that are subjected to a bending moment is
so low that it is elastic until the ultimate state of the pile is
reached; this is because the unbonded prestressed steel bars are
arranged at the center of the piles cross-section. Even though
the prestressed steel bars cannot resist the bending moment, the
residual displacement can be reduced by the prestressed steel bars
after the load is removed. (3) High-strength longitudinal bars and
spirals are used to increase both the exural and shear strengths
of the pile. (4) The exural strength of the pile increases due to
the fact that the high-strength concrete is conned by highstrength spirals and carbon-ber sheets and due to the use of

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M. Akiyama et al. / Engineering Structures 34 (2012) 259270

Table 1
Test specimens.
Notation of
specimena

D4-1
D4-2
D4-3
D4-4
D4-5
D4-6
D4-7
D4-8
D4-9
D4-10
D4-11
D4-12
D4-13
D4-14
D4-15
D4-16
D4-17

0 b
fc0
(MPa)

Longitudinal bar
c

d
g

ConA

ConB

fyl
(MPa)

Diameter

94.1

787

22.2

2.9

796

31.8

5.9

108









41.0

787

22.2

1.8

102

37.0

778

98.7
97.3

37.2
38.1

787

88.0

39.7

107
114
110

796
778

Diameter of prestressing
steel bar (mm)

Prestress
levele (MPa)

(%)
32.0

40.0

31.8
22.2

3.8
1.8

0.0
20.6
0.0
9.8
20.3
19.5
19.8
20.3
12.6
12.1
6.3
12.7
21.0
20.4
13.4
13.7
20.1

Spiral
fysf

h
s

(MPa)

s
(mm)

1440

60

1.29

120
60
120
60
120
60

0.65
1.29
0.65
1.29
0.65
1.29

Thickness of
Con-A (mm)

Carbon-ber
sheeti

75.6
79.6
78.9
81.8
80.4
84.9
83.1
80.4
89.6
89.4
66.2
68.9
66.6
83.7
78.0
66.9
66.4












Type-A

Type-A
Type-B
Type-A
Type-A

(%)

D4 indicates a diameter of 400 mm.

The average compressive strength that was obtained from three cylinders that were 100 mm in diameter and 200 mm in length. Con-A and Con-B indicate concrete
molded by centrifugal force and concrete inlling, respectively, as shown in Fig. 2.
c
Yield strength of the longitudinal bar.
d
Ratio of the area of the longitudinal bar to the cross-sectional area.
e
The prestress level, which was calculated as the axial force that was provided by the prestressed steel bars divided by the sum of the areas of Con-A and Con-B.
f
Yield strength of the spiral.
g
Spacing of the spiral.
h
Volumetric ratio of the spiral.
i
Type-Ameans that carbon-ber sheets were attached to the concrete in the constant-moment region + 150 mm, as shown in Fig. 3, whereas Type-B means that
carbon-ber sheets were attached to the entire pile.
b

concrete inlling; these modications together provide a sufciently high lateral-connement pressure.
For maximum exural strength, the proposed pile should have
both concrete inlling and carbon-ber sheets; however, piles
without concrete inlling and/or carbon-ber sheets were tested
in order to investigate the effect of these modications on the
behavior of the pile. All piles have a sufcient number of highstrength spirals to exhibit a exure failure mode. In order to permit
optimal shear design of the proposed piles, the effects of the number and yield strengths of spirals on the shear strength of the proposed pile should be investigated.
3. Experimental procedure
3.1. Specimen properties and materials
The arrangement of the longitudinal bars and unbonded prestressed steel bars in the proposed pile are shown in Fig. 2. As
shown in the gure, the spacing of the unbonded prestressed steel
bars and the specied thickness of the Con-A depends on the diameters of the unbonded prestressed steel bars. Table 1 depicts the
average thickness of Con-A, measured after the hollow pile was
molded by the centrifugal force.
Type I Ordinary Portland cement was used in all of the concrete
mixtures. Crushed gravel was used as the coarse aggregate, wherein the maximum aggregate size, Gmax, was 15 mm. For the concrete
that was used in the Con-A, silica fumes were used to obtain high
strength, workability and the reduction of ne-particle segregation. Highly owable concrete was used as the concrete inlling.
The concretes compressive strength, f0 c0, was measured as the
average of three identical cylinders, each of which had a diameter
of 100 mm and a height of 200 mm. These cylinders were tested
under axial loading at the time the corresponding pile was tested.
The yield strengths of the longitudinal bars and spirals are
shown in Table 1. The yield strengths of the unbonded prestressed
steel bars were 1150 and 1230 MPa for the 32- and 40-mm-diam-

eter bars, respectively. The tensile strength of the carbon-ber

sheet was 4620 MPa; a single layer with a sufcient overlap length
to anchor the sheet (=100 mm) was used. The carbon-ber sheets
were bonded onto the concretes surface with epoxy resin. The
minimum curing time for bonding of the carbon-ber sheets before
the test was 10 days.
3.2. Testing procedure and instrumentation
Each specimen was tested under a monotonically increasing
load until failure using a four-point bending setup, as shown in
Fig. 4. Deection was measured using ve linear variable-differential transducers (LVDTs). The deection distribution was approximated by a cubic function under the boundary condition that
deection on the supports is zero. The averaged curvature could
be obtained by differentiating the approximated deection function for the constant-moment region.
The cracking behavior of the pile without the carbon-ber
sheets was visually observed. Electrical strain gauges were attached to the following surfaces: concrete, prestressing steel bars,
longitudinal bars, spirals and carbon-ber sheets. When prestress
was applied to the pile, the strain gauge on the prestressed steel
bars was controlled such that a specied prestress was obtained.
After the steel bar-provided prestress was introduced, the measured compression strains of the concrete and longitudinal bars
were almost equal to the values that were computed from the given prestress.
4. Experimental results and discussion
4.1. General observations
Because the specimens had a sufcient number of spirals, all the
piles exhibited a exural failure mode only within the constantmoment region, even though minor shear cracks were observed

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M. Akiyama et al. / Engineering Structures 34 (2012) 259270

(a) Sample cross-section of a proposed pile that uses prestressed steel bars where each has a diameter of 32 mm.
Concrete molded by
centrifugal force
(Con-A)

Prestressing steel bar

Spiral
Longitudinal bar

Specimen: D4-1
115
Direction of
loading

80

240

Units: mm
80

400

(b) Sample cross-section of a proposed pile that uses prestressed steel bars where each has a diameter of 40
mm.
Carbon-fiber sheet
Longitudinal bar
Concrete molded by
centrifugal force
(Con-A)

Prestressing steel bar

Spiral
Concrete infilling
(Con-B)

Specimen: D4-14

Direction of
loading

137
70

260

70

Units: mm

400
Fig. 2. Sample cross-sections of the proposed piles.

Metallic mold for creating the pile

Step 1250 rotations per minute for 6 min.

Step 2400 rotations per minute for 4 min.
Step 3850 rotations per minute for 2 min.
Step 41,000 rotations per minute for 3 min.
Step 51,550 rotations per minute for 0.5 min.
Fig. 3. Molding the pile using centrifugal force.

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M. Akiyama et al. / Engineering Structures 34 (2012) 259270

2,000-kN actuator
Steel plate

150

500

500

150
Carbon-fiber sheet

Pile

Nut
500
1,260

500

500

1,000

500

LVDT
1,260

4000
Units: mm

Prestressing steel bar

Fig. 4. Experimental setup.

outside the constant-moment region. Fig. 5 shows the crack patterns of piles D4-3 and D4-5, which were constructed without carbon-ber sheets or concrete inlling, at the yield point of the
longitudinal bars and at the maximum loading point. These two
specimens had almost the same strength concrete and steel bars
but different amounts of applied prestress. As the prestress applied
to the pile was increased, the number of cracks decreased. The
crack length of the pile with prestress that was provided by the
prestressed steel bars was shorter than the crack length of the pile
without prestress because the pile with a high prestress had a
much larger compression zone in the cross-section.
The piles without carbon-ber sheets and concrete inlling
exhibited brittle behavior after the concrete cover in the constant-moment region was cracked and spalled. The piles without
carbon-ber sheets but with concrete inlling did not show brittle
behavior even after the concrete cover was spalled. The longitudinal bars in the piles with a wide spacing of spirals buckled after
spalling of the concrete cover. The maximum loads on these specimens were observed during spalling of the concrete cover. The
piles with carbon-ber sheets exhibited ductile behavior. These
piles experienced maximum loading during the rupture of the carbon-ber sheets due to the expansion of the cover concrete. Fig. 6
depicts an example of the appearance of the constant-moment region at the point of maximum loading of specimens D4-5 (without
concrete inlling and carbon-ber sheeting) and D4-16 (with concrete inlling and carbon-ber sheeting).

4.2. Effects of the test variables on the exural strengths of the

proposed piles
Fig. 7 depicts the relationship between the load and deection
at the midspans of piles D4-3, D4-4 and D4-5. These piles did not
have carbon-ber sheets or concrete inlling. The three piles
exhibited almost the same material strengths and structural properties but were subjected to different amounts of prestress. The
occurrence of specic events, such as the rst yielding of the longitudinal bar and spalling of the cover concrete, is indicated in
Fig. 7. The tests conrmed that the load at cracking increased with
increasing prestress; however, the peak loads of these three piles
were almost the same, and the capacity of the pile with the highest
prestress, pile D4-5, decreased by about 30% after spalling of the
concrete cover. Because the cover concrete of this pile had a large
compressive strain, spalling of the cover occurred before yielding
of the longitudinal bar.

Fig. 8 depicts the results for piles D4-9, D4-11 and D4-13, which
had concrete inlling but no carbon-ber sheets. The tests conrmed that concrete inlling can prevent a sudden decrease in load
after spalling of the concrete cover. It also conrmed that the maximum loads of these piles did not depend on the amount of
prestress.
Fig. 9 depicts the effects of different prestressing levels on the
exural strength of piles D4-14 and D4-16. These piles had both
concrete inlling and carbon-ber sheets, and the only difference
between them was the magnitude of the initial prestress. Because
the cover concrete was conned by the carbon-ber sheets, it was
not spalled by the compressive stress that was caused by the bending moment. As shown in Figs. 7 and 8, unlike piles without carbon-ber sheets, the use of a concrete cover in piles with carbonber sheets can contribute to an increased exural strength. As a
result, these piles had larger maximum loads. Because the neutral
axis of a pile without initial prestress or with a low prestress level
is closer to the extreme compression ber, the tensile strain of prestressing steel bars in such a pile increases as the bending moment
increases. Even for piles without initial prestress, before loading
the nuts were tightened with a torque wrench to the point just before the tensile strain of the prestressing steel bars would begin to
increase. As described hereinafter, this increase in the tensile strain
could result in there being no difference in the compressive axial
force provided by the prestressing steel bars among piles as the
bending moment increases. Therefore, as shown in Figs. 79, the
prestress level does not have an appreciable inuence on exural
strength; however, Naaman and Alkhairi [12] pointed out that
the increment in the tensile stress of unbonded tendons depends
on the specimen length. In their experiments, shorter specimens
showed larger increments of tensile stress. The effect of the initial
prestress level on the exural strength of piles with different
lengths should be investigated.
The effects of the use of carbon-ber sheeting on the exural
strengths of piles D4-13 and D4-14 are shown in Fig. 10. The only difference between these two piles is the presence or absence of carbon-ber sheets. Pile D4-14, which had carbon-ber sheets,
possessed a much higher exural strength. As mentioned above, unidirectional carbon-ber was used in the test; therefore, this sheet
can only serve to reinforce the circumferential stress of the pile. Because the proposed pile with carbon-ber sheets and concrete inlling had a much higher exural strength than did the conventional
precast concrete pile (see Appendix), it is expected that the proposed
pile will be able to prevent yielding of the pile foundation under
strong earthquake excitation (Japan Road Association [13]).

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M. Akiyama et al. / Engineering Structures 34 (2012) 259270

Fig. 5. Crack patterns at the yielding of the longitudinal bar and at a maximum load.

The effect of the amount of longitudinal bars on the piles exural strength is indicated in Fig. 11. If the piles had neither concrete
inlling nor carbon-ber sheets, the differences in their maximum
loads were not very large, as shown in Fig. 11a, and this is because
spalling of the cover concrete occurs early due to the large prestress. When spalling of the cover concrete is prevented by the
presence of a carbon-ber sheet, the amount of longitudinal bars
affects the exural strength, as shown in Fig. 11b. Fig. 12 depicts
the effect of spiral spacing on exural behavior. From Fig. 12a, it
can be seen that it is not important to have a smaller spiral spacing
for piles without concrete inlling because these piles exhibit brittle behaviors after the concrete cover has become spalled. Even in
piles to which concrete inlling was added to prevent brittle
behavior, the buckling of the longitudinal bars of piles with larger
spiral spacings was clearly observed, and such buckling is indicated
by the sudden load drops depicted in Fig. 12b.
Fig. 7 through Fig. 12 present data that are related to the ductility capacity of the piles. Because the proposed pile has an increased
exural strength, it must also have sufcient shear strength to prevent a brittle failure mode. As shown in Fig. 12, it is also necessary
for the proposed pile to have a smaller spiral spacing in order to
prevent buckling of the longitudinal bars. Although the pile is designed to prevent yielding of the pile foundation and not as a
source of hysteretic energy dissipation, further research is needed
to identify the optimal combination of prestress level, concrete and
rebar strengths, in addition to the amount of carbon-ber sheeting
that is needed to insure the adequate ductility of piles under strong
excitation.
Fig. 13 depicts the relationship between the load and strain, ez,
on a carbon-ber sheet at the midspan of pile D4-12. Based on
experimental tests of concrete columns with carbon-ber sheeting
under concentric loading, Kawashima et al. [14] reported that
strain on the carbon-ber sheets increased at a great rate when
ez was larger than 0.0010.002 because of the expansion of the
internal concrete. Similarly, in the measurements, the impact of
ez on the carbon-ber sheets of the pile increased sharply after
reaching a value of 0.0010.002, and the longitudinal bars

yielded. This result indicates that a high conning pressure was

provided to the internal concrete by the carbon-ber sheets and
that it contributed to increasing the exural strength of the pile.
5. Analytical evaluation of the experimental results
The momentcurvature relationships presented in this study
are derived from a cross-section layer model that takes into account the constitutive laws of the materials. In order to describe
the compression behavior of concrete, the stress-averaged strain
model presented by Akiyama et al. [15] is used. In previous
stressstrain models [1620], the experimental longitudinal strain
that was used was expressed by the change in gauge length divided
by the original gauge length. In tests that have been reported in the
literature, the total length or diameter of the specimen is used as
the gauge length. This strain should be dened as the averaged
strain because the core concrete has a certain fracture zone, and
the descending stress-averaged strain curve depends on the gauge
length. Based on the constant-fracture-energy concept for compression, Akiyama et al. developed a formalized stress-averaged
strain model that uses the compressive fracture energy and effective conning pressure. This model is applicable to reinforced concrete columns that consist of concretes with compressive strengths
of up to 130 MPa and transverse reinforcement yield strengths of
up to 1450 MPa. Regardless of the gauge length and cross-sectional
dimensions, this model agrees well with most test results reported
in the literature.
The effective conning pressures are given by:

pe ke;v qw f s;c

at a peak stress f cc of the confined concrete

1

p0e ke;v qw f y;h

at 0:5 f cc after the peak stress

(

where f s;c Es 0:45ec0 6:39


0:881 )
ke;v qw
 fyh
fc0

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M. Akiyama et al. / Engineering Structures 34 (2012) 259270

1200
D4-11 (fpe = 6.3N/mm2)
D4-9 (fpe = 12.6N/mm2)
D4-13 (fpe = 21.0N/mm2)

Load (kN)

Yielding of the longitudinal bar

Spalling of the cover concrete

800

400

0
0

50
Deflection at the midspan (mm)

100

Fig. 8. Relationship between the load and deection in a pile without carbon-ber
sheets and with concrete inlling.

1200
D4-16(fpe = 13.7N/mm2)
D4-14(fpe = 20.4N/mm2)

Load (kN)

800

Fig. 6. Appearance of a constant-moment region at a maximum loading.

400
1200
D4-3 (fpe = 0N/mm2)
D4-4 (fpe = 9.8N/mm2)
D4-5 (fpe = 20.3N/mm2)

Yielding of the longitudinal bar

Load (kN)

Yielding of the longitudinal bar

Spalling of the cover concrete

800

50
Deflection at the midspan (mm)

100

Fig. 9. Relationship between the load and deection in a pile with carbon-ber
sheets and concrete inlling.

400
0
fc0 0:85fc0

6
2

ke;v
0
0

50

Fig. 7. Relationship between the load and deection in a pile without carbon-ber
sheets or concrete inlling.

Kb

40
 1:0
fc0

2
15ds 1

 qcc

for a circular cross-section

100

Deflection at the midspan (mm)

ec0 0:0028  0:0008kb

2s02  10s0 ds 15ds

4
5

where qw is the area ratio of the transverse reinforcement, which is

dened as the total cross-sectional area, As, of the spirals with spacing s divided by the area, sd, where d is the core dimension that is
measured from the center to center of a spiral; ke,v is the effective
connement coefcient; fs,c is the stress in the spiral at the peak
stress; qcc is the ratio of the area of the longitudinal steel to the area
of the core; ds is the core dimension measured from center to center
of a spiral in the circular column; s is the clear spacing between spi0
rals; fyh is the yield strength of the spiral; and fc0
is the compressive

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M. Akiyama et al. / Engineering Structures 34 (2012) 259270

1,200

(a)

D4-13
D4-14

(b)
D4-6
D4-5
Yielding of the longitudinal bar
Spalling of the cover concrete

Yielding of the longitudinal bar

Spalling of the cover concrete

D4-10
D4-9
Yielding of the longitudinal bar
Spalling of the cover concrete

1,200

Load (kN)

Load (kN)

800

400

Buckling of the longitudinal bar of D4-10

800

400

0
50
Deflection at the midspan (mm)

100

0
0

50

100 0
Deflection at the midspan (mm)

50

100

Fig. 10. Effect of carbon-ber sheeting on the exural strength.

Fig. 12. Effect of spiral spacing on the exural strength.

(a)

(b)

D4-6
D4-8
Yielding of the longitudinal bar
Spalling of the cover concrete

1,200

1,200

D4-16
D4-15
Yielding of the longitudinal bar

Gauge A

Gauge B

Gauge C

Load (kN)

800

Load (kN)

800

Yielding of the longitudinal bar

Occurrence of damage of strain gauge

400

Gauge C

400

Gauge A

0
50

100 0
50
Deflection at the midspan (mm)

100

Gauge B

0.015
0.005
0.01
Strain of the carbon-fiber sheet

Fig. 11. Effect of longitudinal bar number on the exural strength.

Fig. 13. Relationship between the load and the strain of the carbon-ber sheets in
pile D4-12.

strength of plain concrete that has been measured from a cylinder

with a diameter of 100 mm and height of 200 mm.
The compressive fracture energy, Gf,c, is given by:

(
Gf ;c Gfc0 1 157

pe
fc0

 2 )
p
 77:3 e
fc0

Gfc0 134  93:3kb

9
p0e

In this study, the effective conning pressures pe and

in Eqs.
(1) and (2) were modied by taking into consideration whether or
not the pile had carbon-ber sheets and/or concrete inlling. When
a pile without a carbon-ber sheet had concrete inlling, the original equations indicated in Eqs. (1) and (2) were used to obtain the
effective conning pressure for the spiral-conned concrete in regions (b) and (c) in Fig. 14, whereas the concrete cover in region (a)
in Fig. 14 was treated as plain concrete.

When a pile did not have both a carbon-ber sheet and concrete
inlling, the concrete in region (a) of Fig. 15 was treated as plain
concrete. The effective conning pressure of the concrete in region
(b) of Fig. 15 was modied to take into account the reduced
conning pressure due to the presence of the hollow core using
the factor f, as proposed by Kohashi et al., wherein this was based
on their experimental results with hollow reinforced concrete columns under concentric loading [21,22]. The effective conning
pressure of a pile lacking a carbon-ber sheet and concrete inlling
was determined as follows:

pe fke;v qw fs;c at the peak stress f cc of the confined concrete

10
p0e fke;v qw fyh

at 0:5 f cc after the peak stress

11

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M. Akiyama et al. / Engineering Structures 34 (2012) 259270




t
D
f 2:0 1  eF 1 100Ps 0 < t 
D
2

Region (a)

12

Region (b)

F1


1
fyh =200  F 2 2

F2

13

0
fc0
 60

F 2 2:0

14

0
F 2 4  fc0 =30 60 < fc0
< 120

Ps As =t  s

Region (c)

15

where t and D are the thickness and diameter of the pile,

respectively.
For concrete columns with carbon-ber sheets under concentric
loading, some models for estimating the conning pressures that
are provided by the carbon-ber sheets have been presented [6
8,14]. Based on equations presented by Kawashima et al. [14],

Regions (a) and (b): Con-A

Region (c): Con-B

Stress-averaged strain relation of concrete in

region (b) in Fig. 16 with concrete infilling
and a carbon-fiber sheet

Fig. 14. Cross-section of a pile with concrete inlling and without a carbon-ber
sheet.

100

Region (b)

Axial Stress (MPa)

Region (a)
Stress-averaged strain relation of
concrete in region (b) in Fig. 14
with concrete infilling and
without a carbon-fiber sheet

50

Stress-averaged strain relation of

concrete in Region (b) in Fig. 15
without concrete infilling or a
carbon-fiber sheet.

0
0

0.5
1
Axial strain (%)

1.5

Fig. 17. Relationship between the stress and averaged strain in conned concrete.

Regions (a) and (b): Con-A

Fig. 15. Cross-section of a pile without concrete inlling or a carbon-ber sheet.

Region (a)

Increment of Stress (MPa)

Region (b)
D4-11 (fpe = 6.3N/mm2)

D4-9 (fpe = 12.6N/mm2)

D4-13 (fpe = 21.0N/mm2)

0
Region (c)

0
Regions (a) and (b): Con-A
Region (c): Con-B

Fig. 16. Cross-section of a pile with concrete inlling and a carbon-ber sheet.

50
Deflection (mm)

100

Fig. 18. Effect of the initial prestress on the increment of stress in a prestressed
steel bar during loading.

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M. Akiyama et al. / Engineering Structures 34 (2012) 259270

the effective conning pressure applied to the concrete in region

(a) of Fig. 16 is given as follows:

pe qCF eCFt ECF

at the peak stress f cc of the confined concrete

16

The effective conning pressure applied to the concrete in regions (b) and (c) in Fig. 16 is provided by the carbon-ber sheets
and spirals and is given as follows:

pe ke;v qw fs;c qCF eCFt ECF

at the peak stress f cc of the confined concrete

p0e qCF fCF

qCF

at 0:5 f cc after the peak stress

17

4n  tCF

18

where qCF is the area ratio of the carbon-ber sheets, eCFt is the
strain at the peak stress (=0.0015), ECF and fCF are the modulus of
elasticity and tensile strength of the carbon-ber sheet, respectively, n is the number of carbon-ber sheets that are wrapped
around a pile, and tCF is the thickness of a carbon-ber sheet.

Experimental result
Given by
longitudinal bars

p0e ke;v qw fyh qCF fCF at 0:5 f cc after the peak stress

Computed result

Computed result assuming without

prestressing
Given by concrete in region (c)
in Figs. 14 and 16

Given by concrete in region

(a) in Figs. 14 to 16

D4-1

D4-3

D4 -2

D 4-4

400

0
0.1
800

D4-5

D4-6

D4-8

D4-7

Moment (kN m)

400

0
0.1
800

D4-10

D4-9

D4-11

D4-12

400

0
0.1
800

D4-13

D4-15
D4-14

D4-17
D4-16

400

0
0.1

20

The stress-averaged strain model that was proposed by Akiyama et al. [15] requires the use of the element length Lm over
which the compressive fracture energy Gf,c is dissipated. In the analytical evaluation of the concentric compression test results, Lm
must be the same as the gauge length. Gf,c is kept constant in the
strain-localized element, regardless of Lm, under the condition that
Lm is larger than the compressive fracture zone. Therefore, the

Given by concrete in region (b) in Figs. 14 to 16

800

19

Curvature (m-1)

Fig. 19. Comparison of the experimental and computed momentcurvature relationships.

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M. Akiyama et al. / Engineering Structures 34 (2012) 259270

post-peak portion of the stress-averaged strain curve changes with

Lm, and it is steeper for larger values of Lm; however, there have
been no reports describing how to determine Lm in the analytical
evaluations of concrete components that have been subjected to
simultaneous axial loading and bending. In order to minimize the
differences between the experimental and computed results of
the momentcurvature relationship, Lm was set to 500 mm.
Fig. 17 depicts the relationship between the stress and averaged
strain of the concrete in region (b) of Figs. 1416 with
Lm = 500 mm. It was conrmed that having both concrete inlling
and the carbon-ber sheets enhanced the strength and ductility
capacity of the conned concrete.
Even if the stress-averaged strain relation of the tensioned concrete is considered in the section analysis, this may provide a negligible contribution to the relationship between the moment and
curvature, that is, the tensile strength of the concrete is ignored.
A bi-linear model was used to demonstrate the steels stressstrain
relationship. Because the unbonded prestressed steel bars were
placed at the center of the cross-section, the prestressed steel bars
did not resist the bending moment. In the exural analysis, the
bending moment that was carried by the prestressed steel bars
was ignored.
Fig. 18 depicts the relationship between the increment in the
stress of the prestressed steel bars and the deections of D4-9,
D4-11 and D4-13 during loading. The increment in stress of the
prestressed steel bars that occurred before the ultimate exural
load was reached was not negligible for the pile with the lower
prestress level, as shown in the gure; however, because this increment could not be quantied in this study, the sectional analysis
was conducted by assuming that the initial compressive force that
was provided by the prestressed bars acted as an external axial
force on the centroid. For the pile with the lower prestress level,
this will produce an underestimate of the exural strength.
Fig. 19 depicts a comparison of the experimental and computed momentcurvature relationships. The increments in the
stress of the prestressed steel bars of D4-3 and D4-11 were

7.10 and 5.75 MPa, respectively. In comparison to the initial prestress of these piles, the increments are signicant. In addition,
as shown in Fig. 12b, the piles with fewer spirals (i.e., wider
spiral spacings), such as D4-8 and D4-10, exhibited buckling of
the longitudinal bars. The results for these specimens did not
indicate good correlations between the experimental and analytical results. It should be noted that if the tensile strain of the
prestressed steel bar does not increase with the bending moment, a higher exural strength could not be expected for the
pile with a lower prestress level, as shown in the computed results for D4-1, D4-3, and D4-11. The effects of the test parameters on the increase in the tensile strain of the prestressed steel
bars need to be examined. For the specimens with higher prestress levels and smaller spiral spacings, the analytical and
experimental momentcurvature curves agree very well.
The data presented in Figs. 17 and 19 conrm that the carbonber sheets and concrete inlling signicantly affected the exural
strengths of the piles. Even though the carbon-ber sheeting that
was used in this experiment cannot itself resist the bending moment and the contribution to the momentcurvature relation that
is provided by concrete inlling [region (c)] is small, as shown in
Fig. 19, the utilization of carbon-ber sheets and concrete inlling
can provide the conning pressures to concrete in regions (a) and
(b) and improve the behavior of concrete in regions (a) and (b). As a
result, the piles with carbon-ber sheets and concrete inlling (i.e.,
D4-12, 14, 15, 16, and 17) show better structural performances.
Fig. 19 shows the computed results for the piles with carbon-ber
sheets and concrete inlling under the assumption that piles do
not have prestressing steel bars. These results show that it is necessary for the proposed piles to have prestressing steel bars to increase the exural strength.
The element length, Lm, cannot be determined based on
mechanical considerations. Fig. 20 shows the effect of Lm on the
computed momentcurvature relationship. With longer Lm, the
stress-averaged strain relation in the post-peak region proposed
by Akiyama et al. [15] has a steeper descent if the conning

500

500

Moment (kN m)

Moment (kN m)

(a)

250

(b)

250

Experimental results
Computed results (Lm=300 mm)
Computed results (Lm =500 mm)
Computed results (Lm =700 mm)

Experimental results
Computed results (Lm =300 mm)
Computed results (Lm =500 mm)
Computed results (Lm =700 mm)

D4-5

0
0.00

0.05

Curvature (m-1)

D4-9

0.10

0
0.00

0.05

Curvature (m-1)

Fig. 20. Effect of Lm on the computed momentcurvature relationship.

0.10

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M. Akiyama et al. / Engineering Structures 34 (2012) 259270

pressure applied to the concrete is low. Therefore, the computed

result with Lm = 700 mm for pile D4-5 lacking a carbon-ber sheet
and concrete inlling exhibits brittler behavior, as shown in
Fig. 20a. Since the stress-averaged strain relation has no descending branch and becomes independent of Lm as the conning pressure increases, the computed momentcurvature relations with
Lm = 300, 500, and 700 mm are almost the same as those shown
in Fig. 20b. Although the best t with the experimental results
for piles with diameters of 400 mm can be obtained by setting
Lm = 500 mm, the appropriate magnitude of Lm to reproduce the
experimental results may depend on a piles diameter and structural details. Further investigation is needed to determine Lm. The
analytical method to obtain the relationship between the bending
moment and the curvature will be used in the seismic design of the
proposed pile.
6. Conclusions
(1) In order to prevent the yielding of a pile foundation due to a
severe earthquake, the design of a new precast, highstrength, and reinforced concrete pile that was prestressed
with unbonded bars that were arranged at the center of pile
cross-section was presented in this study.
(2) The effects of concrete strength, number of longitudinal bars,
prestress level and presence or absence of concrete inlling
and carbon-ber sheets on the exural strength of the proposed pile were experimentally investigated. The test results
indicate that it is necessary for the proposed pile to have
both concrete inlling and carbon-ber sheeting to increase
the pile exural strength and prevent brittle failure.
(3) Sectional analyses of the proposed piles were conducted to
obtain the momentcurvature relationships. The effective
conning pressures were estimated by taking into consideration the presence or absence of carbon-ber sheets and
concrete inlling. By using the stress-averaged strain relationship for the conned concrete with the effective conning pressures, the analytical and experimental moment
curvature relationships agreed well with one another.
(4) Further research is needed to investigate the effects of combined axial and shear forces on the ductility capacity and
plastic hinge behavior of the proposed pile. In these tests,
the structural details of pile heads that have been embedded
in concrete footings should be examined so that design features can be identied that will prevent the failure of pileconcrete footing joints that are subjected to cyclic loading.

Appendix A. The exural strengths of conventional piles that

are used in Japan
In Japan, the area ratio of the longitudinal bars, volumetric ratio
of the spirals, prestress level and specied concrete strength for a
conventional precast, prestressed, and reinforced concrete pile

(DAM105, A-D22) with a diameter of 400 mm are 3.9%, 0.47%, 4.1

and 105 MPa, respectively. It should be noted that the prestressing
tendons of a conventional pile are bonded with concrete and are
not arranged at the center of the pile but, instead, are arranged
along the circumference of the spiral, like longitudinal bars. The
bending moment at the rst yield of a longitudinal bar is suggested
by the manufacturer to be 170 kN m. If this pile is tested under
load by using a similar four-point setup, as shown in Fig. 4, the calculated load at the rst yield of the longitudinal bar is 270 kN.
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