Influence of Research it

Prestressed Concrete
Alan H. Mattock
Professor of Civil Engineering and
Head, Division of Structures and Mechai
University of Washington
Seattle, Washington

P restressed concrete, if not ac-

tually born of research, is alive
and well today, largely as a re-
sult of the nurturing it received from
research over the years.
The principle of prestressing has
been used in various ways for cen-
turies, particularly for circular ob-
jects such as wheels and barrels,
which were prestressed by iron
bands.
The idea of applying prestressing
to concrete beams dates from the
early days of reinforced concrete,
when great controversy centered on
the question of cracks caused by
bending stresses. In the late 19th
century, for instance, the Prussian
Railways required a safety factor of
between 1.5 and 2.5 against flexural
cracking in reinforced concrete, the
calculation being made on the as-
sumption that the section was homo-
geneous.
Requirements such as this made it
almost impossible to construct rein-
forced concrete bridges and pro-
vided a strong incentive for the ap-
plication of prestressing to concrete
beams.
The idea of counteracting flexural
stresses due to loads by prestress-
ing, was clearly expressed by
J. Mandl in 1896. However, it was
about another 10 years before
M. Koenen 2 derived a formula for the
magnitude of prestressing force
needed to limit the concrete flexural
tension stress under load to a cer-
tain value.
Koenen followed this up, by what
was probably the first piece of re-
search carried out on prestressed
concrete. He made tests on rein-
forced concrete beams, the rein-
forcement in certain of these beams
being prestressed. The prestressed
reinforcement was both mechanically
anchored and anchored by bond.
In tests of the beams immediately
after fabrication, the flexural crack-
ing load for the prestressed beams
was about 50 percent higher than
that for the companion reinforced
concrete beams. The ultimate
strengths of companion prestressed

72
 Synopsis
The author reviews the significant contributions
of research in prestressed concrete since the
beginning of this century and discusses current
and future research needs.
Prestressed concrete is the offspring of research.
Although the principle of prestressing has been
used in various ways for centuries, its successful
application to concrete is relatively recent and
was made possible only as a result of the
understanding of the long-term deformation of
concrete gained through research.
Early attempts to produce prestressed concrete
members failed because of insufficient
understanding of the creep and shrinkage
characteristics of concrete and of the need to
use high yield strength steel.
The first major breakthrough came about when
Freyssinet applied the results of his careful
study of the long-term deformation of concrete
and produced the first successful prestressed
concrete structures.
In the United States, the most significant research
work was that in conjunction with building the
Walnut Lane Bridge and the extensive basic
research conducted at the University of Illinois.

and reinforced concrete beams were cracking load had become much the
about the same, as might be expect- same as for the ordinary reinforced
ed. concrete beams, i.e., the prestress
The steel Koenen used in his test had been lost.
beams had a yield point of about 36 The practical development of pre-
ksi and the prestress was only about stressed concrete flexural members
8 ksi. With the advantage of hindsight was not to occur for about another
we can understand why, when similar 20 years. It awaited the better under-
prestressed beams were tested at a standing of the long-term deforma-
later date, it was found that the tion of concrete, which would be at-

PCI JOURNAL/September-October 1976 73

(a)
Arch cast on gap
centering -/
centering
(c)
Centering removed, arch
lowered to original level
Fig. 1. Freyssinet system for the adjustment of stress in concrete arches.
tamed through research in the inter-
vening years.
Long-Term Deformation
Studies
From the time of Koenen's experi-
ments onward, there was consider-
able interest in the long-term defor-
mation of concrete, both in Europe
and America. This interest had noth-
ing to do with prestressed concrete,
but derived from concern about the
internal redistribution of stresses and
the increase in deformations, which
occur in reinforced concrete struc-
tures as a result of creep and shrink-
age of the concrete with time.
Probably the earliest research on
this topic in the United States was
that of W. K. Hatt 3 of Purdue Univer-
sity, who reported in 1907 on the ef-
fect of duration and repetition of
loading on the behavior of reinforced
concrete beams. He concluded that
"These results show a sort of plas-
ticity in concrete, by which it yields
under the action of a load applied for
a long time, ... "
74
Arch lifts off
Hydraulicrams
centering pushing
(d)
Gap at crown filled,
rams removed.
Com p leted arch
Most of the time-dependent be-
havior studies were made on rein-
forced concrete beams or slabs. Few
measurements of the creep and
shrinkage of plain concrete were
made. The earliest tests of plain con-
crete in the United States were made
by E. B. Smith 4 5 who, in 1914-16,
made measurements of both shrink-
age and creep in plain concrete cyl-
inders of 3 in. diameter.
Smith concluded that the creep
and shrinkage increase at a gradually
decreasing rate, approaching a final
value asymptotically; also that the
combined effects of shrinkage and
flow in compression may amount to
as much as 0.2 percent.
The topic of time-dependent de-
formation in concrete was studied by
many researchers in subsequent
years. The most extensively docu-
mented work was that of Davis and
Davis 6 at the University of California
and W. H. Glanville 7 at the Building
Research Station, in England.
These research studies lead to a
much better understanding of creep nity to do so occurred in connection
and shrinkage in concrete and of the with the construction of the Plougas-
long-term behavior of reinforced con- tel Bridge which consists of three
crete members. It remained however, arches, each of 186 meters (614 ft)
for E. Freyssinet in France to fully ap-span. In order better to apply his
preciate the significance of the newly method for the compensation of sec-
emerging knowledge with respect to ondary bending stresses in the
prestressed concrete. arches, he made a study of the time-
dependent deformation of concrete
Freyssinet's Work which extended over about 3 years.9
Freyssinet became interested in His own studies and the data ob-
the idea of modifying the forces and tained by other researchers, lead him
deflections in structures caused by to conclude' ° that the long-term de-
loads in 1903. 8 Between 1907 and formations of concrete were predict-
1912 he applied these ideas in the able and could be reduced by using
construction of several concrete arch concrete of high quality. He further
bridges. Hydraulic rams were placed concluded that provided a very high
in a gap left at the crown of the arch. strength steel was used, the long-
Oil was pumped into the rams and term deformations of concrete were
the arch lifted from the centering. not so large as to make impossible
After the centering was removed, the maintenance of a high permanent
the oil pressure in the rams was re- prestress in the concrete of flexural
duced until the crown of the arch re- members.
turned to the elevation it had when Freyssinet was granted patents re-
resting on the centering. The space lating to prestressed concrete in 1928
at the crown was then blocked and and from that time onward devoted
the rams removed. It was considered his entire energies to the develop-
that this process would eliminate the ment of prestressed concrete as a
secondary moments and deforma- practical form of construction. He
tions which would otherwise have carried out intensive research on the
occurred in the arch due to "rib production of very high strength con-
shortening" when the centering was crete, developing strengths of 14,000
removed (see Fig. 1). psi in 12 to 24 hours, using a com-
Freyssinet had originally thought bination of heat (100 C), and high
that concrete behaved elastically, pressure (2000 to 3500 psi), to expel
however, measurements he made on excess water and compact the con-
some of the arches indicated that this c rete.' °
was not so and that the concrete Freyssinet received some of his
strains were increasing with time. earliest support from the electric
This made him question the practica- power industry for which he devel-
bility of the idea of prestressing by oped prestressed concrete poles. He
inducing elastic deformations in a reported 1 ° comparative tests of two
structure before loading, and lead 40-ft long poles, each fixed over a
him to start a study of the time-de- length of 6 ft 7 in. from the base, one
pendent deformation of concrete. in prestressed concrete, and the
Unfortunately, the 1914-18 war in- other in reinforced concrete.
tervened, in the process of which this The prestressed concrete pole
early work was destroyed and Frey- weighed 1650 lb and contained 110
ssinet was not able to resume his lb of reinforcement; the reinforced
research until 1926-27. The opportu- concrete pole weighed 2150 lb and

PCI JOURNAL/September-October 1976 75

contained 286 lb of reinforcement.
The strength of the steel was the
same in both cases.
An identical pair of poles were
loaded statically at their free end,
both poles broke at a load of about
2000 lb.
The pair of poles were subjected
to cyclic loads of ±1000 lb, at a rate
of about 8 cycles per minute. The
initial deflection of the prestressed
pole was about half that of the rein-
forced concrete pole. After a few
hundred cycles of load, the rein-
forced concrete pole was heavily
cracked and it failed at a few thou-
sand cycles. However, the pre-
stressed pole withstood 500,000 cy-
cles of load without any deteriora-
tion, an early indication of the excel-
lent fatigue resistance of prestressed
concrete members.
From the beginning, Freyssinet
conceived of prestressed concrete as
being an entirely new combination of
6.43"
-10"
Midspan
Section
4.42 ^^,,: F ;=:,;, ::
Fig. 2. Details of prestressed concrete girder constructed and tested by
Wayss and Freytag (1936).
76
steel and concrete in which tensile
stresses never occurred in the con-
crete under service loads. This led
him to use prestressing in more than
one direction, whenever this seemed
advantageous.
Thus, when he was asked by the
German contractors, Wayss and
Freytag, to design a prototype pre-
stressed concrete roof girder for
them, he used both longitudinal pre-
stress to modify the flexural stresses
and a combination of longitudinal
and transverse prestress to eliminate
principal tension stresses in the web
due to shear. The test of this girder
in 1936 was probably the first test of
a prestressed concrete girder.
This test girder was really a one-
third scale model of a 183-ft span
roof girder it was proposed to con-
struct." The test girder had an over-
all length of 62 ft 3 in. and a span of
61 ft. It was designed to carry a ser-
vice live load of 717 lb per ft of the
2'-7"
1
I-9.25' j
4.18" Top Flange
1.58"
64 No. 0.21" bars
fpu = 146 ksi
^^ Bottom
l.38 Flange
Fig. 3. Test of Wayss and Freytag prestressed concrete girder of 61-ft span.
(Courtesy: Institution of Civil Engineers.)
span.
The girder varied in depth from 2
ft 7 in. at the supports to 3 ft 10 in. at
midspan and had an average dead
weight of 148 lb per ft. A typical cross
section of the girder is shown in Fig.
2. It was prestressed longitudinally
by 0.21-in, diameter steel bars having
an ultimate strength of 146 ksi and an
elastic limit of 90 ksi. They were in-
itially tensioned to 78 ksi and a final
prestress of 57 ksi after losses was
anticipated in design. Vertical pre-
stress was provided in the web by
pairs of 0.16-in, diameter wires at 15-
in. centers, except for the outer 3 ft
at each end where pairs of 0.21-in.
diameter bars at 15-in, centers were
provided.
The longitudinal bars were preten-
sioned against the trough shaped
concrete base of the beam mould.
The bars were anchored in blocks of
hooped concrete, which were at-
tached by bolts to the mould base
after tensioning. Sixty-four bars were
provided at midspan, reducing to 22
bars over the supports. The concrete
PCI JOURNAL/September-October 1976
was cast in 12 segments using a sin-
gle adjustable form, which was
moved along the mould base at in-
tervals of a few hours between the
casting of the segments. A combina-
tion of vibration, pressure and heat
resulted in a concrete strength of
3000 psi at about 6 hours after cast-
ing and 5600 psi at 28 days.
The girder was subjected to its
first load tests between 22 and 30
days, at which time the prestress loss
was deduced from the girder be-
havior to be about 12 ksi. After the
initial tests the girder was left under
dead load plus 60 percent of service
live load for 18 months, at which time
further tests were made and the pre-
stress loss had then reached 16 ksi,
as compared with the projected final
loss of 21 ksi.
The girder was loaded at twelve
points uniformly distributed along the
span, as may be seen in Fig. 3. It was
subjected to various cycles of load-
ing and unloading, the maximum load
being 1.31 times the service live load.
The measured beam behavior was
77
very nearly elastic. No cracking was
observed in these tests, in which it
was estimated that the maximum
flexural tension stress was 342 psi.
After the initial tests, the beam was
left under a sustained load equal to
60 percent of the live load for 18
months. It was then tested to destruc-
tion. Flexural cracking occurred at
1.57 times the live load. On release
of the load, the flexural cracks closed
completely. A compression failure of
the top flange occurred at a total
load equal to 2.3 times (dead load
plus the service live load), corre-
sponding to a midspan bending mo-
ment of 923 ft-kips.
The results of this research con-
vinced Wayss and Freytag of the vi-
ability of prestressed concrete con-
struction and led to the construction
by them of what was probably the
first prestressed concrete highway
bridge. Its spanned 108 ft across the
Reichsautobahn at Oelde and con-
sisted of four 63-in. deep I-section
girders made composite with a rein-
forced concrete deck slab. The meth-
od of constructing the girders was
the same as that used for the test
beam.
Freyssinet called the flexural
cracking load of a prestressed con-
crete beam the "transformation
load," saying that the beam was at
that point transformed into a rein-
forced concrete beam in-so-far as its
behavior was concerned. He insisted
that in order to ensure behavior cor-
responding to a homogeneous un-
cracked section, no flexural tension
stresses could be tolerated in pre-
stressed concrete beams, i.e., they
must be "fully prestressed."
Partial Prestressing
Freyssinet and his disciples were
unyielding on this matter for many
years. It remained for others to dem-
onstrate that for a wide range of ap-
78
plications, sizeable flexural tension
stresses can be allowed in pre-
stressed concrete beams without
sacrificing the principal benefits
gained from prestressing, i.e,, that
"partial prestressing" is a legitimate
form of prestressing.
In 1939, F. V. Emperger 12 showed
that the deflection and cracking be-
havior of reinforced concrete beams
reinforced with high strength bars
(fy = 57 ksi) could be improved by
the provision of additional pre-
stressed wire reinforcement (fp,, _
213 ksi). Also that the strength of
both the bars and the wires could be
developed at ultimate despite their
very different strengths.
The current acceptance of partial-
ly prestressed concrete is largely due
to the work of P. W. Abeles. He made
his initial proposals in 1940 13 and re-
ported preliminary tests in 1945.14
These showed that, with a prestress
equal to 40 percent of that required
for "full prestressing," it was possi-
ble to delay cracking until 62.6 per-
cent of the ultimate load. Also, that
after opening to a width of 0.02 in.,
the cracks closed completely on re-
moval of the load.
At about this time, the London and
North Eastern Railway Company
were faced with replacing many high-
way over-bridges in connection with
the electrification of a trunk railway
line. It was necessary to minimize the
construction depth and Abeles was
able to persuade the company to give
serious consideration to the use of
precast "partially prestressed" con-
crete beams. As a result of this, both
static and dynamic tests of prototype
partially prestressed members were
made under Abeles' direction.15
The 37-in, wide test members (see
Fig. 4) simulated a part of a com-
posite bridge deck slab. The precast
concrete inverted tee 'beams were
each prestressed with twenty No. 0.2-
 Precast beams
Cast in place
concrete
37°

20 No. prestressed
0.2" diam. wires
Fig. 4. Composite, partially prestressed concrete slabs tested by Abeles
(1951).
in. diameter wires having a strength
of 224 ksi. An additional twelve un-
prestressed, 0.2-in, diameter wires of
the same strength, were provided
to increase the flexural ultimate
strength of the beams. The beams
were designed to have a maximum
/ 12 No. unprestressed
0.2" diam. wires
concrete flexural tension stress of
550 psi under dead load plus service
live load.
Typical static load test results, for
a member subjected alternately to
static and fatigue loading, are shown
in Fig. 5. The strength of the con-

40
35.6 tons
After
3x 106 cycles
30
After
1 2x106
a- 20
cycles
7 z cracking load
2l'-O" ^
fter 106 cycles 8'6'! ,
1o F
2
0 I 2 3 4 5 6
Deflection - in.
Fig. 5. Typical test results for partially prestressed concrete slabs tested
by Abeles.

PCI JOURNAL/September-October 1976 79

 Fig. 6. Test of a continuous prestressed concrete beam by Lin (1955).
(Courtesy: American Concrete Institute.)
crete at test was 6150 psi and on first
loading, flexural cracks were initially
observed at a calculated flexural ten-
sion stress of 900 psi. The member
was then subjected to 1 million
cycles of load corresponding to a
range of from 50 psi compression to
550 psi tension in the maximum flex-
ural stress, if the section had been
uncracked.
The slab was subsequently sub-
jected to an additional 2 million
cycles of load with still larger maxi-
mum nominal tensile stresses in the
concrete. The behavior was very sat-
isfactory, with closing of cracks and
essentially complete recovery of de-
flection on removal of load, even af-
ter the 3 million cycles of load. The
member was then loaded statically to
failure and the full strength of both
the prestressed and unprestressed
reinforcement was developed.
Similarly favorable results in the
other tests and in routine acceptance
80
tests of other partially prestressed
precast beams, lead to the extensive
use of partial prestressing in bridge
construction in Great Britain, with
consequent economies. Abeles con-
tinued his work in this area and to-
day, the concept of partial prestress-
ing has won worldwide acceptance.
Continuous Prestressed
Beams
The majority of the early pre-
stressed concrete structures were
statically determinate. The effects of
the restraint of deformations due to
prestressing in statically indetermi-
nate structures was understood by
only a few, in fact in the 1940's, a
mystique seemed to surround the
subject. In order to improve under-
standing of this topic, a symposium
on prestressed concrete statically in-
determinate structures was held in
London in 1951.
The most significant paper was
probably that in which Y. Guyon
set out the theoretical treatment of
continuity in prestressed concrete
that he had developed, in particular
the concepts of "concordancy" and
of the transformation of tendon pro
files. (I consider the development of
theoretical, concepts to be research,
as much as is the experimental study
of behavior.)
At about this time, research on the
behavior of prestressed concrete
continuous beams was taking place
in several European countries. One
of the participants was our distin-
guished colleague, Professor T. Y.
Lin. Fig. 6 shows a prestressed beam
tested by him" in the laboratory of
Professor G. Magnel in Belgium.
Much of this work was reported and
discussed at the FIP Second Con-
gress in 1955, 18 the emphasis being
on inelastic behavior.
There was considerable variation
in opinion as to the extent of mo-
ment redistribution possible in pre-
stressed concrete continuous beams
before collapse. Tests in Britain19
demonstrated that full redistribution
of moments was possible before fail-
Balanced load w
c .g.c.^
TLt t t_LJ_U_
Tendon
Concrete beam
Uniform stress F/A and zero deflection under
balanced load.
Fig. 7. The "Load-Balancing" concept for the design of prestressed
concrete beams.
PCI JOURNAL/September-October 1976
ure, but those carried out in Bel-
gium" and Italy 20 showed that full
redistribution of moments was not al-
ways possible.
Although today we have a much
better understanding of the behavior
of prestressed concrete continuous
beams, we still lack a readily appli-
cable general method for determin-
ing whether full redistribution of mo-
ments can be obtained in any par-
ticular beam before failure.
Load Balancing Concept
The design of many prestressed
concrete continuous structures has
been simplified by the development
of the concept of "Load Balancing"
by our distinguished colleague Pro-
fessor Lin. 21 In this approach, the
shape of the tendon profile is chosen
so that the transverse forces exerted
by the tendons on the concrete ex-
actly balance the gravity loads it is
desired that the structure shall carry
without deflection, as shown in Fig. 7.
Under this load the concrete is sub-
ject to a uniform stress F/A at all
sections.
The stresses due to any additional
'-Transverse load w
from tendon
81
 end anchorage____ end anchorage
unnecessary I necessary

Force in
wire i Force which can
a>
U be anchored by
li ' I bond
I

,7
2 3 4 5 6
Wire Diameter — mm
Fig. 8. Anchorage requirements for pretensioned smooth wires according
to Jung and Lichtner.22

load are calculated as for any beam
made of a homogeneous material.
These stresses are added to F/A, to
arrive at the stresses which will exist
in the prestressed beam. This con-
cept has the advantages of simplicity
in application and also of direct con-
trol of deflection under some loading
condition which may be critical.
Bond Between Steel
and Concrete
Pretensioned prestressed concrete
depends for its integrity on bond be-
tween the steel and concrete. This
was a matter of concern from the be-
ginning and in the first large scale
production of pretensioned pre-
stressed concrete members in 1939,
E. Hoyer used 2-mm diameter "piano
wire" in order to minimize the bond
stresses.
The generally accepted view on
this matter in the 1940's is summed
up in Fig. 8 proposed by Jung and
Lichtner, 22 which purports to show
that only wires of up to 3-mm diame-
ter could be anchored by bond. How-
ever, extensive development tests of
pretensioned prestressed concrete
railroad ties in Britain 23 at about that
time, demonstrated that adequate an-
chorage could be obtained by bond
using 5-mm diameter wires. It is, of
course, economically advantageous
to use as large a size of individual
tensioned element as possible.
A great step forward in this respect
was the introduction of the use of
seven-wire strand in place of smooth
wires. It is believed that the idea was
first experimented with by B. J. Bas-
kin 24 of the Concrete Products Cor-
poration of America. He used 1/a-in.
diameter seven-wire strands to pre-
stress two experimental voided slabs
for highway bridge deck use. The
ends of the strands were gripped in
sleeves swaged onto the strands,
which were tensioned using a screw
jack device as shown in Fig. 9.
The 17x36 in., 30-ft long preten-
sioned slabs were subjected to vari-
ous loading tests. One was tested to

82
Fig. 9. Arrangements for pretension-
ing the strand, Concrete Products
Corporation of America.
(Courtesy: A. R. Anderson.)

destruction and broke in the middle

without any slip of the strands, as
shown in Fig. 10. The other was sub-
jected to lesser loads over a period
of a year, without any slip being ob-
served. Then began the use of pro-
gressively larger sizes of seven wire
strand, until today the predominantly
used size is 1h in. diameter.
It is not possible to identify all the
individuals involved in this develop-
ment, but mention should be made
of the studies of the development
length and transfer length of seven-
wire strand carried out by Hanson
and Kaar,25 and by Kaar, LaFraugh
and Mass.26

Walnut Lane Bridge

Testing
The first large-scale test of a pre-
stressed concrete girder in the
United States was that of the 160-ft
long test girder fabricated in ad-

Fig. 10. Test of pretensioned voided slab, prestressed with seven wire strand.
(Courtesy: A. R. Anderson.)
 51" _'1
Midspan
Section 790
L__ I--
--•I —^
30 "
Fig. 11. Walnut Lane Bridge test girder.
vance of the construction of the Wal-
nut Lane Bridge in 1949. Some de-
tails of the girder are shown in Fig.
11.
This test was significant, in that it
demonstrated to practicing engi-
neers in the United States, the prac-
ticability of using prestressed con-
crete for the construction of major
highway bridges. About 500 engi-
neers from many parts of the United
States witnessed the testing of this
girder from a specially built grand-
stand."
The arrangements for test can be
seen in Fig. 12. Loads were applied
by eight hydraulic rams at intervals
of 20- ft 8 in. However, these rams
proved to be insufficient to break the
girder. Their loads had to be supple-
mented by 59 tons of ingots placed
on the girder at midspan, in order to
cause flexural failure at a midspan
moment of 19,300 ft-kips. This corre-
sponded to 2.69 times the moment
due to the dead load plus the service
live load (including impact).28
84
fc = 5500 psi
39" 64 No. 0.276" diam.
wires per cable
ii0'"
6
fps = 245 ksi
fpe= 131 ksi
Before being tested to destruction,
the girder was subject to several
cycles of loading and unloading in
the service load range and to mod-
erate overloads. Its behavior in these
tests corresponded well with theory
and demonstrated the resiliency of
prestressed concrete members under
overloads.
University of Illinois
Studies
One of the most significant con-
tinuing programs of research in the
United States has been that carried
out since 1951 at the University of
Illinois, under the overall direction of
Professor C. P. Siess and the joint
sponsorship of the Illinois Division of
Highways and the U.S. Bureau of
Public Roads.
Although the overall objective was
to advance knowledge of prestressed
concrete with particular reference
to its use in highway bridge con-
struction, the actual studies have
been very fundamental. The results
obtained have had a considerable im-
pact on design specifications for all
types of prestressed concrete con-
struction in the United States.
Many different topics were studied
in this research program, ranging
from flexural strength to anchorage
zone stresses and time-dependent
effects.
However, the most notable part of
the program was probably that con-
cerned with the shear strength of
prestressed concrete members.29,30
Tests of over 200 beams lead to the
identification of the different types of
diagonal tension cracking which oc-
cur in the flexurally cracked and flex-
urally uncracked parts of beams, re-
spectively, and to the formulation of
methods for calculating the shear at
diagonal tension cracking.

Current and
Future Research

The following section discusses

briefly the influence of current re-
search and some topics which need
further investigation.
Bridge Deck Panels
A very good example of the way re-
search can influence practice is the
extensive work done at the Texas
Transportation Institute, 31 the Uni-
versity of Florida, 32 and the Pennsyl-
vania State University 33 , 34 on precast
prestressed bridge deck panels used
as stay-in-place forms. As a direct re-
sult of this research, these types of
deck panels are now being used on
bridges in Illinois, Texas, Florida, Vir-
ginia, and Pennsylvania.35
Connections
Finding the most effective method
to connect precast prestressed mem-
bers for a given system is perhaps
the single most important problem
Fig. 12. Arrangements for test of
Walnut Lane Bridge test girder.
(Courtesy: A. R. Anderson.)
confronting the prestressed concrete
industry. This problem is especially
compounded in high rise buildings
and particularly those in seismic
areas. For example, there are many
local building codes which limit the
height of prestressed concrete struc-
tures in earthquake zones.
Recently a very comprehensive re-
search program has been undertaken
at the University of Washington on
the shear transfer strength of rein-
forced concrete subject to both sin-
gle direction and cyclically reversing
loading.

PCI JOURNAL/September-October 1976 85

 Some of the test results obtained
in this study 36 - 38 have been applied
very effectively to the design of cor-
bel connections. 39 Nevertheless,
similar studies need to be made on
the many diverse types of connec-
tions met in practice.
Partial Prestressing
Mention has already been made of
the advantages to be gained from the
use of partial prestressing and of the
pioneering work of Abeles in this
field. Although the benefits of partial
prestressing are now generally rec-
ognized, additional research is need-
ed to determine the optimum propor-
tions of prestressed and unpre-
stressed reinforcement, especially as
related to crack width.40
Segmental Construction
The advantages of using factory-
produced precast elements which.
can be tied together with post-ten-
sioning in the field are recognized
and are being applied successfully in
the bridge field. Nevertheless, fur-
ther research and developmental
work is needed to facilitate the ap-
plication of segmental construction
to other diverse types of construc-
tion, such as buildings, industrial and
marine structures, and other applica-
tions.
Structures Susceptible to
Progressive Collapse
Ever since the partial collapse of
Ronan Point in England in 1968, there
has been a great deal of concern
with regard to the structural safety of
large panel buildings subject to ab-
normal loads. Research is currently
in progress in this field at the Port-
land Cement Association 41 and also
a PCI Committee report has recently
been published on bearing wall
buildings, 42 which references rele-
vant research reports from several
countries.
86
Sea Structures
A whole new technology is devel-
oping as a result of the tremendous
commercial interest in deep sea and
offshore structures including ships.
This is a field in which application
largely preceeded research. Never-
theless, this is a field still in its in-
fancy and there remains much related
basic research and developmental
work to be done. (See "Current
Trends in Concrete Sea Structures"
by Ben C. Gerwick, Jr., in this Sym-
posium Volume and also the Pro-
ceedings of the Conference on Con-
crete Ships and Floating Structures
held at the University of California at
Berkeley, September 15-19, 1975.43)
New Materials
Lastly, we must remember that the
commercial realization of pre-
stressed concrete came about only
after the development of high yield
strength prestressing steel and the
production of high strength concrete.
The continued success of pre-
stressed concrete will depend largely
on the improvement of the properties
of these two basic materials and their
combined interaction.
During the past few years there
has been much research activity into
producing very high strength con-
crete. Compressive strengths in the
15,000-psi range have become fairly
common in the laboratory and
strengths up to 10,000 psi are now
being produced commercially. One
major goal of prestressed concrete is
to improve its strength to weight ra-
tio.
In the last few years there has
been much experimentation with
polymer and sulfur impregnated con-
cretes and lately with glass and steel
fiber reinforced concrete. Although
most of these new products are cur-
rently limited to nonstructural uses,
their importance will grow in the
years ahead especially when they
can be combined efficiently and eco-
nomically with prestressing.
Concluding Remarks
Research on various aspects of
prestressed concrete behavior has
proliferated in all countries over the
years. Because of space limitations,
it is not possible to summarize all
the research done (particularly in
countries outside of the United
States) nor to give due credit to all of
the many people who have been ac-
tively involved in research in the field
of prestressed concrete.
I have, however, tried to present a
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89