PRESTRESSED CONCRETE

At the beginning of the twentieth century, “Prestressed

Concrete” soon became the single most significant new direction
in structural engineering according to Billington (2004). This
unique concept gave the engineer the ability to control the
actual structural behavior while forcing him or her to dive more
deeply into the construction process of the structural material.
It gave architects as well as engineers a new realm of
reinforced concrete design pushing not only the structural but
also the architectural limits of concrete design to a level that
neither concrete nor structural steel could achieve. Ordinary
reinforced concrete could not achieve the same limits because
the new long spans that prestressed concrete were able to
achieve could not be reached with reinforced concrete. Those
longer spans required much deeper members, which quickly made
reinforced concrete uneconomical. Additionally, steel structures
weren’t able to create the same architectural forms that the new
prestressed concrete could.

Prestressing is simply introducing loads to a structure to

enable it to withstand larger service loads. However, as
Freyssinet summarized in the foreword of Guyon’s reference book,
“This idea is of an extreme simplicity in its foundation, even
if it is not in the execution.” That is why even though
prestressing has been used in structures and everyday objects
since prehistoric times (for example, bows and tents), it has
only been completely understood and implemented in the past
century. The development from first intuition through full
material control may be divided into four main phases, or ages:
intuition, optimistic engineering, struggling to minimize
losses, and effective prestressing. This division can be used
for the study of the historical evolution of prestressed
structures composed of any material.

Prestressed concrete was an idea of structural designers

since P.H. Jackson of the United States (U.S.) patented his idea
in 1888 (Refer to Appendix 1 for P.H. Jackson’s patent.) as a
method of prestressed construction in concrete pavement. The
reason prestressed concrete was not used as a building material
in the early years was the lack of technology to support the
idea. For example, metallurgists had not yet discovered high
strength steel, which combined the needed high compressive
forces in a minimal amount of steel with low relaxation
characteristics that minimized creep and post-stress
deformations in the prestressing steel; therefore, the idea
hibernated until Freyssinet reexamined it in the early twentieth
century, the first to actively promote prestressed concrete.

In the first age, the benefits of prestressing are intuited

by the designer. In the second age, thanks to engineers, the
main principle is rationally understood and implemented:
preloads are designed to act in opposition to service loads. The
third age is characterized by the recognition that losses exist
but are not easily quantifiable or effectively controlled.
Finally, the fourth age is that of complete understanding of the
long-term behavior of materials and of engineering solutions
able to overcome the effects of losses.

A Brief History of Prestressed Concrete

Before the development of prestressed concrete, two

significant developments of reinforced concrete are the
invention of Portland cement and introduction of steel in
concrete. These are also mentioned as the part of the history.
The key developments are mentioned next to the corresponding
year.

1824 Aspdin, J., (England)

Joseph Aspdin was an English cement manufacturer who

obtained the patent for Portland cement on 21 October 1824.
Aspdin called the product Portland cement because set mortar
made from it resembled “the best Portland stone". Portland stone
was the most prestigious building stone in use in England at the
time. The patent clearly does not describe the product
recognised as Portland cement today.

1857 Monier, J., (France)

Joseph Monier was a French gardener and one of the

principal inventors of reinforced concrete. He introduced steel
wires in concrete to make flower pots, pipes, arches and slabs.

The following events were significant in the development of

prestressed concrete.

1886 Jackson, P. H., (USA)

Peter H. Jackson introduced the concept of tightening steel

tie rods in artificial stone and concrete arches. An engineer
from California, patented a prestressing system that used a tie
rod to construct beams or arches from individual blocks.
Jackson’s work, when viewed as a whole, is difficult to classify
into only one age of prestressed concrete, as his inventions
have elements of both the first age (lack of engineering rigor)
and the second (sometimes mechanically efficient). His
inventions can even be categorized as third age because he may
have had the intuition of varying loads over time. In sum,
Jackson was the pioneer of the idea of prestressed concrete in
building construction and the inspiration for the next
generation of engineers and inventors.

Prestressed concrete was an idea of structural designers

since P.H. Jackson of the United States (U.S.) patented his idea
in 1888 (Refer to Appendix 1 for P.H. Jackson’s patent.) as a
method of prestressed construction in concrete pavement. The
reason prestressed concrete was not used as a building material
in the early years was the lack of technology to support the
idea. For example, metallurgists had not yet discovered high
strength steel, which combined the needed high compressive
forces in a minimal amount of steel with low relaxation
characteristics that minimized creep and post-stress
deformations in the prestressing steel; therefore, the idea
hibernated until Freyssinet reexamined it in the early twentieth
century, the first to actively promote prestressed concrete.

1888 Doehring, C. E. W., (Germany)

In 1888, C. W. Doehring of Germany obtained a patent for

prestressing slabs with metal wires. But these early attempts at
prestressing were not really successful because of the loss of
the prestress with time. He manufactured concrete slabs and
small beams with embedded tensioned steel.

J. Lund of Norway and G. R. Steiner of the United States

tried early in the twentieth century to solve this problem, but
to no avail. After a long lapse of time during which little
progress was made because of the unavailability of high-strength
steel to overcome prestress losses, R. E. Dill of Alexandria,
Nebraska, recognized the effect of the shrinkage and creep
(transverse material flow) of concrete on the loss of prestress.
He subsequently developed the idea that successive post-
tensioning of unbonded rods would compensate for the time-
dependent loss of stress in the rods due to the decrease in the
length of the member because of creep and shrinkage. In the
early 1920s, W. H. Hewett of Minneapolis developed the
principles of circular prestressing. He hoop-stressed horizontal
reinforcement around walls of concrete tanks through the use of
turnbuckles to prevent cracking due to internal liquid pressure,
thereby achieving watertighteness. Thereafter, prestressing of
tanks and pipes developed at an accelerated pace in the United
States, with thousands of tanks of water, liquid, and gas
storage built and much mileage of prestressed pressure pipe laid
in the two to three decades that followed.

1908 Stainer, C. R., (USA)

Recognised losses due to shrinkage and creep, and suggested

retightening the rods to recover lost prestress.

1923 Emperger, F., (Austria)

Hewett developed a method of winding and pre- tensioning

high tensile steel wires around concrete pipes.

1924 Hewett, W. H., (USA)

Hewett introduced hoop-stressed horizontal reinforcement

around walls of concrete tanks through the use of turnbuckles.
Thousands of liquid storage tanks and concrete pipes were built
in the two decades to follow.

1925 Dill, R. H., (USA)

Used high strength unbonded steel rods. The rods were

tensioned and anchored after hardening of the concrete.

Linear prestressing continued to develop in Europe and in

France, in particular through the ingenuity of Eugene
Freyssinet, who proposed in 1926 through 1928 methods to
overcome prestress losses through the use of high-strength and
high-ductility steels. In 1940, he introduced the now well-known
and well-accepted Freyssinet system comprising the conical wedge
anchor for 12-wire tendons. During World War II and thereafter,
it became necessary to reconstruct in a prompt manner many of
the main bridges that were destroyed by war activities. G.
Magnel of Ghent, Belgium, and Y. Guyon of Paris extensively
developed and used the concept of prestressing for the design
and construction of numerous bridges in western and central
Europe. The Magnel system also used wedges to anchor the
prestressing wires. They differed from the original Freyssinet
wedges in that they were flat in shape, accommodating the
prestressing of two wires at a time.

1926 Eugene Freyssinet (France)

Used high tensile steel wires, with ultimate strength as

high as 1725 MPa and yield stress over 1240 MPa. In 1939, he
developed conical wedges for end anchorages for post-tensioning
and developed double-acting jacks. He is often referred to as
the Father of Prestressed concrete.

1938 Hoyer, E., (Germany)

Hoyer developed ‘long line’ pre-tensioning method.

1940 Magnel, G., (Belgium)

Magnel developed an anchoring system for post-tensioning,

using flat wedges.

P. W. Abeles of England introduced and developed the

concept of partial prestressing between the 1930s and 1960s. F.
Leonhardt of Germany, V. Mikhailov of Russia, and T. Y. Lin of
the United States also contributed a great deal to the art and
science of the design of prestressed concrete. Lin’s load-
balancing method deserves particular mention in this regard, as
it considerably simplified the design process, particularly in
continuous structures. These twentieth-century developments have
led to the extensive use of prestressing throughout the world,
and in the United States in particular
 The International Federation for Prestressing (FIP), a
professional organisation in Europe was established in 1952. The
Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI) was established in
USA in 1954.

Prestressed concrete was started to be used in building

frames, parking structures, stadiums, railway sleepers,
transmission line poles and other types of structures and
elements.

In India, the applications of prestressed concrete

diversified over the years. The first prestressed concrete
bridge was built in 1948 under the Assam Rail Link Project.

Among bridges, the Pamban Road Bridge at Rameshwaram,

Tamilnadu, remains a classic example of the use of prestressed
concrete girders.

Today, prestressed concrete is used in buildings,

underground structures, TV towers, floating storage and offshore
structures, power stations, nuclear reactor vessels, and
numerous types of bridge systems including segmental and cable-
stayed bridges. Note the variety of prestressed structures in
the photos throughout the book; they demonstrate the versatility
of the prestressing concept and its all-encompassing
applications. The success in the development and construction of
all these landmark structures has been due in no small measure
to the advances in the technology of materials, particularly
prestressing steel, and the accumulated knowledge in estimating
the short- and long-term losses in the prestressing forces.

References:

PCI Journal. The Four Ages Of Early Prestressed Concrete

Structures. Marc Sanabra-Loewe and Joaquin Capellà-Llovera.
December 2014.

Indian Institute of Technology Madras. “Prestressed Concrete

Structures.” Dr. Amlan K Sengupta and Prof. Devdas Menon.

Institution of Structural Engineers. “First Report on

Prestressed Concrete.” Journal of the Institution of Structural
Engineers, September 1951.
 Republic of the Philippines
NUEVA ECIJA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
Department of Civil Engineering

RESEARCH WORK NO.1

IN
PRESTRESSED CONCRETE DESIGN
(CE 563)

“HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF PRESTRESSED

CONCRETE”

Submitted By:
Mark Edrian DC. Yumol
BSCE

Submitted To:
Engr. Allan Abenoja Jr.
Subject Professor