Loss of Prestress Force

Prestress force does not remain constant with time. Stresses also varies due to changes in
concrete strength and corresponding modulus of elasticity. Hence, prestressed beam
behavior are checked at several stages of loading. The most common stages to be checked
for stress and behavior are:
• Immediately following transfer of Prestress. At this stage,
‐Highest stress in tendon
‐Concrete strength is lower (fcii). Recommended values of fcii from ACI code.
• At service load stage after all losses. At this stage,
‐Long term effective prestress level reaches
‐ fci reaches its ultimate value.
Factors affecting loss of prestress:
1. Elastic shortening of concrete
2. Creep of concrete
3. Shrinkage of concrete
4. Steel relaxation
5. Anchorage take up
6. Loss or gain due to bending moment
7. Frictional losses

Except (1) these losses are time dependent and one factor affect the
another.
Lump sum estimate of loss:
• Elastic Shortening of Concrete:
Considering first axial shortening (without bending) :

Fi is initial force in tendon. F0 is force in tendon just after transfer. F as well as E cannot be
known exactly.
 Using Fi and transformed section, a more exact expression:

Where,
From above expression, change in steel stress at transfer is simply the concrete stress
multiplied by n.
• When bending due to self weight (girder moment) and eccentricity of
prestress is present:

• Initially prestress force is Fi . This is known as the force in tendon between

bulkheads.
• At transfer, prestress force is F0 . This is not exactly known and may be
assumed as F0 = 0.9 Fi