Book Description

The development of reinforced and prestressed concrete during the last 50 years was highly promoted by the ”Comité Euro-international du Béton (CEB)“ and the ”Fédération Internationale de la Précontrainte (FIP)“. In 1998 these two associations merged, forming the ”Fédération Internationale du Béton (fib)“. The results of CEB and FIP had been distributed in different ways, such as 'CEB Bulletins d'Information', FIP–Reports, FIP–Notes and CEB–News. These Bulletins or reports comprised various kinds of information, such as State-of-the-Art-Reports, Research Reports, Application Manuals, Guides to Good Practice and the CEB/FIP Model Codes 1978 and 1990. These Model Codes provided design principles and application rules to the structural engineering profession and have been predominantly used for code drafting by many national and international standardizing bodies. The Textbook on Structural Concrete is now intended to provide background information and justification especially for the CEB/FIP Model Code 90 and in some fields of recently extended knowledge. It is addressed to advanced students: this means that basic information on structural analysis and behaviour of structural concrete is a required prerequisite. Practising structural engineers may utilize it for gaining background information on the CEB/FIP Model Code 90 (and national or regional codes as for ex. EUROCODE 2, based on MC 90). The Textbook is also conceived to assist teachers at technical universities or engineering schools to achieve better understanding of the recent theories on structural concrete. Having these targets in mind the General Assembly of CEB decided already in 1995 to set-up a Special Activity Group ”Dissemination of Knowledge“ to realise that work. The authors invited to draft the different chapters had been mostly involved already in drafting the Model Code 90. In this way consistent information could be provided, both for the code and the textbook. Each chapter has been thoroughly discussed and commented within the Special Activity Group 2. This textbook was first presented to fib members during the Technical Activity Workshop in October 1999 in Prague, held in connection with the first fib symposium. The authors are looking forward to receiving comments from various corners.