Analysis of Continuous Prestressed Concrete Beams

Chris Burgoyne

Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

The effective use of prestressed concrete relies on an appropriate combination of structural analysis techniques with knowledge of the material behaviour. Design of prestressed concrete structures is usually left to specialists; the unwary will either make mistakes or spend inordinate time trying to extract a solution from the various equations.

There are a number of fundamental differences between the behaviour of prestressed concrete and that of other materials. Structures are not unstressed when unloaded; the design space of feasible solutions is totally bounded; in hyperstatic structures, various states of self-stress can be induced by altering the cable profile, and all of these factors get influenced by creep and thermal effects.

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