(c)Stage 3 – Final conditions
The hardening of the cast-in-place concrete results in a composite section that will resist all future loading as a unit. Because the precast concrete girder was strained when the
cast –in-place concrete was joined to it, there will be a strain discontinuity at the interface of the two concrete, which must be taken into account when predicting the response of the composite girder.
The actual behavior of a composite girder is rather complex, in that with time there will be a redistribution of stresses between the precast concrete and the cast-in-place concrete due to creep and differential shrinkage. Methods for predicting this complex response are discussed in Section 5.17.
For design purposes a simple procedure is typically used to predict the concrete stresses. It is assumed that the stresses on the girder due to prestress(Pf), self-weight of the girder (Dg), and weight of the cast-in-place concrete (Ds) remain unchanged from those calculated in Stage 2. The stresses due to the additional dead load (Dadd) and the live load (L) are assumed to be resisted by the composite section, with the final stresses being found by summing these two sets of stresses (see Fig. 6-23). In computing the stresses in the composite section the cast-in-place concrete, having an elastic modulus of Ecs is transformed to an equivalently stiff area of precast concrete, having an elastic modulus of Ecg.