Concrete is a popular building material because it is relatively inexpensive.
Although concrete has approximately the same compressive strength as soft
wood, its tensile strength is practically zero. For this reason, concrete beams
are reinforced with longitudinal steel bars embedded in the tensile side of
the beam. Fortunately, there is a natural bond between concrete and steel,
so that no slipping occurs between them during bending. This allows us to
apply the principles developed in the preceding section.2
It is usually assumed that concrete carries no tensile stress. The tensile
side of the concrete thus serves merely to position the steel that carries the entire
tensile load. If there is only one row of steel rods, as shown in Fig. 9.4(a),
the steel can be assumed to be uniformly stressed (the diameters of the rods are
small compared to the depth of the cross section). Consequently, the transformed
cross section of the beam is as shown in Fig. 9.4(b). The shaded portions
indicate areas that are e¤ective in resisting bending. The ratio n ¼ Est=Eco
is usually between 6 and 10, depending upon the quality of the concrete.