Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Engineering - Department of Civil Engineering

Concrete design codes provide several approaches for the design of concrete sections subjected to axial loads and biaxial bending moments. The Egyptian code of practice ECP 203 provides two different approaches. A detailed investigation for these two approaches was carried out in this study. It was concluded that the two approaches have drawbacks, preventing them from being used for designing general sections subjected to axial loads and biaxial bending moments. This presented a need to develop a new approach in the Egyptian code of practice, applicable of designing any general rectangular section without restraints on reinforcement distribution. A study was carried out on different design codes such as the British Standards BS-8110, American Concrete institute ACI 318, Euro Code EC-2 and Indian code. It was recognized from the study that the most common approaches are the load contour method and the equivalent eccentricity method. In this research a parametric study was carried out using those two approaches to propose and evaluate an improved function for the alpha factor used in the load contour method. The beta factor that is used in equivalent eccentricity method was derived from the alpha factor. The new approaches are proposed to the Egyptian code committee for discussion in order to be addressed in the upcoming editions of the Egyptian code

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