Introduction to

Prestressed Concrete
By: Engr. Yuriy B. Sesican
Prestressed Concrete
• Concrete that is substantially compressed during production, in a manner that
strengthens it against tensile forces which will exist when in service.
• This compression is produced by the tensioning of high-strength "tendons" located
within or adjacent to the concrete and is done to improve the performance of the
concrete in service.
• Tendons may consist of single wires, multi-wire strands or threaded bars that are most
commonly made from high-tensile steels, carbon fiber or aramid fiber.
• The essence of prestressed concrete is that once the initial compression has been
applied, the resulting material has the characteristics of high-strength concrete when
subject to any subsequent compression forces and of ductile high-strength steel when
subject to tension forces.
• This can result in improved structural capacity and/or serviceability compared with
conventionally reinforced concrete in many situations. In a prestressed concrete
member, the internal stresses are introduced in a planned manner so that the stresses
resulting from the superimposed loads are counteracted to the desired degree.
Uses of prestressed concrete
• Prestressed concrete is a highly versatile construction material as a result of it being
an almost ideal combination of its two main constituents: high-strength steel, pre-
stretched to allow its full strength to be easily realised; and modern concrete, pre-
compressed to minimise cracking under tensile forces.
• Prestressed concrete is used in a wide range of building and civil structures where its
improved performance can allow for longer spans, reduced structural thicknesses,
and material savings compared with simple reinforced concrete. Typical applications
include:
• high-rise buildings,
• residential slabs,
• foundation systems,
• bridge and dam structures,
• silos and tanks,
• industrial pavements
• nuclear containment structures.
Prestressed
Concrete in
Buildings
• Longer spans for the same structural depth
• Load balancing results in lower in-service deflections,
which allows spans to be increased (and the number of
supports reduced) without adding to structural depth.
• For a given span, lower in-service deflections
allows thinner structural sections to be used, in
turn resulting in lower floor-to-floor heights, or
more room for building services.
• Typically, prestressed concrete building elements
are fully stressed and self-supporting within five
days. At this point they can have their formwork Capital Gate, Abu Dhabi Ocean Heights 2, Dubai
stripped and re-deployed to the next section of the
building, accelerating construction "cycle-times".
• The combination of reduced structural thickness,
reduced conventional reinforcement quantities,
and fast construction often results in prestressed
concrete showing significant cost benefits in
building structures compared to alternative
structural materials. Sydney Opera House , Australia
Prestressed
Concrete in
Bridges
• Concrete is the most popular structural material for
bridges, and prestressed concrete is frequently adopted.
When investigated in the 1940s for use on heavy-duty
bridges, the advantages of this type of bridge over more
traditional designs was that it is quicker to install, more
economical and longer-lasting with the bridge being less Cebu Cordova Link Expressway – 3D
lively. perspepctive
• In short-span bridges of around 10 to 40 metres (30 to 130
ft), prestressing is commonly employed in the form of
precast pre-tensioned girders or planks. Medium-length
structures of around 40 to 200 metres (150 to 650 ft),
typically use precast-segmental, in-situ balanced-cantilever
and incrementally-launched designs.
• For the longest bridges, prestressed concrete deck
structures often form an integral part of cable-stayed
designs.

Cebu Cordova Link Expressway (Ongoing

Construction)
Prestressed
Concrete in
Dams
• Concrete dams have used prestressing to counter
uplift and increase their overall stability since the
mid-1930s. Prestressing is also frequently retro-
fitted as part of dam remediation works, such as
for structural strengthening, or when raising crest
or spillway heights.
• Most commonly, dam prestressing takes the form
of post-tensioned anchors drilled into the dam's
concrete structure and/or the underlying rock
strata. Such anchors typically comprise tendons
of high-tensile bundled steel strands or individual
threaded bars. Tendons are grouted to the
concrete or rock at their far (internal) end, and
have a significant "de-bonded" free-length at
their external end which allows the tendon to
stretch during tensioning.
Prestressed Concrete
Silos and Tanks
• Circular storage structures such as silos and tanks can
use prestressing forces to directly resist the outward
pressures generated by stored liquids or bulk-solids.
Horizontally curved tendons are installed within the
concrete wall to form a series of hoops, spaced
vertically up the structure. When tensioned, these
tendons exert both axial (compressive) and radial
(inward) forces onto the structure, which can directly
oppose the subsequent storage loadings.
• If the magnitude of the prestress is designed to always
exceed the tensile stresses produced by the loadings, a
permanent residual compression will exist in the wall
concrete, assisting in maintaining a watertight crack-
free structure.
Prestressed nuclear and
blast-containment
structures
• Prestressed concrete has been established as a reliable
construction material for high-pressure containment
structures such as nuclear reactor vessels and
containment buildings, and petrochemical tank blast-
containment walls. Using prestressing to place such
structures into an initial state of bi-axial or tri-axial
compression increases their resistance to concrete
cracking and leakage, while providing a proof-loaded,
redundant and monitorable pressure-containment
system.
• Nuclear reactor and containment vessels will commonly
employ separate sets of post-tensioned tendons curved
horizontally or vertically to completely envelop the reactor
core. Blast containment walls, such as for liquid natural
gas (LNG) tanks, will normally utilise layers of horizontally-
curved hoop tendons for containment in combination
with vertically looped tendons for axial wall prestressing.
Prestressed
hardstands and
pavements
• Heavily loaded concrete ground-slabs
and pavements can be sensitive to
cracking and subsequent traffic-driven
deterioration. As a result, prestressed
concrete is regularly used in such
structures as its pre-compression
provides the concrete with the ability
to resist the crack-inducing tensile
stresses generated by in-service
loading.
 Prestressed and Non-prestressed
Comparison
Comparison of non-prestressed beam (top) and
prestressed concrete beam (bottom) under load:
1. Non-prestressed beam without load
2. Non-prestressed beam with load
3. Before concrete solidifies, tendons embedded in
concrete are tensioned
4. After concrete solidifies, tendons apply
compressive stress to concrete
5. Prestressed beam without load
6. Prestressed beam with load
Tensioning Systems
• Tensioning systems may be classed as either monostrand, where each
tendon's strand or wire is stressed individually, or multi-strand, where
all strands or wires in a tendon are stressed simultaneously. Tendons
may be located either within the concrete volume (internal
prestressing) or wholly outside of it (external prestressing). While pre-
tensioned concrete uses tendons directly bonded to the concrete,
post-tensioned concrete can use either bonded or unbonded tendons.
Pre-tensioned concrete
• Pre-tensioned concrete is a variant of prestressed concrete where the tendons are tensioned prior
to the concrete being cast.
• The concrete bonds to the tendons as it cures, following which the end-anchoring of the tendons is
released, and the tendon tension forces are transferred to the concrete as compression by static
friction.
• Pre-tensioning is a common prefabrication technique, where the resulting concrete element is
manufactured remotely from the final structure location and transported to site once cured.
• It requires strong, stable end-anchorage points between which the tendons are stretched. These
anchorages form the ends of a "casting bed" which may be many times the length of the concrete
element being fabricated. This allows multiple elements to be constructed end-to-end in the one
pre-tensioning operation, allowing significant productivity benefits and economies of scale to be
realized.
• Unlike those of post-tensioned concrete (see below), the tendons of pre-tensioned concrete
elements generally form straight lines between end-anchorages.
Pre-tensioning Process
Pre-tensioning photos
Pre-tension Bond Strength
• The amount of bond (or adhesion) achievable between the freshly set
concrete and the surface of the tendons is critical to the pre-
tensioning process, as it determines when the tendon anchorages can
be safely released.
• Higher bond strength in early-age concrete will speed production and
allow more economical fabrication. To promote this, pre-tensioned
tendons are usually composed of isolated single wires or strands,
which provides a greater surface area for bonding than bundled-
strand tendons.
Harped Tendons
• Where "profiled" or "harped" tendons are required, one or more
intermediate deviators are located between the ends of the tendon to
hold the tendon to the desired non-linear alignment during
tensioning. Such deviators usually act against substantial forces, and
hence require a robust casting-bed foundation system.
Post-tensioning
• Post-tensioned concrete is a variant of prestressed concrete where the tendons are tensioned
after the surrounding concrete structure has been cast.
• The tendons are not placed in direct contact with the concrete, but are encapsulated within a
protective sleeve or duct which is either cast into the concrete structure or placed adjacent to
it.
• At each end of a tendon is an anchorage assembly firmly fixed to the surrounding concrete.
Once the concrete has been cast and set, the tendons are tensioned ("stressed") by pulling the
tendon ends through the anchorages while pressing against the concrete.
• The large forces required to tension the tendons result in a significant permanent compression
being applied to the concrete once the tendon is "locked-off" at the anchorage. The method of
locking the tendon-ends to the anchorage is dependent upon the tendon composition, with the
most common systems being "button-head" anchoring (for wire tendons), split-wedge
anchoring (for strand tendons), and threaded anchoring (for bar tendons).
Post tensioned balanced-cantilever
bridge
Tendon encapsulation systems
• are constructed from plastic or galvanised steel materials, and are classified
into two main types: those where the tendon element is subsequently bonded
to the surrounding concrete by internal grouting of the duct after stressing
(bonded post-tensioning); and those where the tendon element is
permanently debonded from the surrounding concrete, usually by means of a
greased sheath over the tendon strands (unbonded post-tensioning).
• Casting the tendon ducts/sleeves into the concrete before any tensioning
occurs allows them to be readily "profiled" to any desired shape including
incorporating vertical and/or horizontal curvature. When the tendons are
tensioned, this profiling results in reaction forces being imparted onto the
hardened concrete, and these can be beneficially used to counter any loadings
subsequently applied to the structure.
Post Tension Tendon Anchorage
Bonded post-tensioning
• In bonded post-tensioning, tendons are permanently bonded to the surrounding concrete by the in
situ grouting of their encapsulating ducting (after tendon tensioning). This grouting is undertaken
for three main purposes: to protect the tendons against corrosion; to permanently "lock-in" the
tendon pre-tension, thereby removing the long-term reliance upon the end-anchorage systems;
and to improve certain structural behaviors of the final concrete structure.
• Bonded post-tensioning characteristically uses tendons each comprising bundles of elements (e.g.
strands or wires) placed inside a single tendon duct, with the exception of bars which are mostly
used unbundled. This bundling makes for more efficient tendon installation and grouting processes,
since each complete tendon requires only one set of end-anchorages and one grouting operation.
Ducting is fabricated from a durable and corrosion-resistant material such as plastic (e.g.
polyethylene) or galvanised steel, and can be either round or rectangular/oval in cross-section. The
tendon sizes used are highly dependent upon the application, ranging from building works typically
using between 2 and 6 strands per tendon, to specialized dam works using up to 91 strands per
tendon.
• Fabrication of bonded tendons is generally undertaken on-site, commencing with the fitting of end-
anchorages to formwork, placing the tendon ducting to the required curvature profiles, and reeving
(or threading) the strands or wires through the ducting. Following concreting and tensioning, the
ducts are pressure-grouted and the tendon stressing-ends sealed against corrosion.
Unbonded post-tensioning
• Unbonded post-tensioning differs from bonded post-tensioning by
allowing the tendons permanent freedom of longitudinal movement
relative to the concrete. This is most commonly achieved by encasing
each individual tendon element within a plastic sheathing filled with a
corrosion-inhibiting grease, usually lithium based. Anchorages at each
end of the tendon transfer the tensioning force to the concrete, and
are required to reliably perform this role for the life of the structure.
Unbonded post-tensioning can take
the form of:
• Individual strand tendons placed directly into the concreted structure
(e.g. buildings, ground slabs), or
• Bundled strands, individually greased-and-sheathed, forming a single
tendon within an encapsulating duct that is placed either within or
adjacent to the concrete (e.g. restressable anchors, external post-
tensioning)
Unbonded slab post-tensioning. (Above) Installed strands End-view of slab after stripping forms, showing individual
and edge-anchors are visible, along with prefabricated strands and stressing-anchor recesses.
coiled strands for the next pour.
Comparison between bonded and
unbonded post-tensioning
Bonded Post-Tensioning Unbonded Post-Tensioning
• Reduced reliance on end-anchorage integrity
• Ability to be prefabricated
• Following tensioning and grouting, bonded tendons are connected to the
surrounding concrete along their full length by high-strength grout. Once cured, • Unbonded tendons can be readily prefabricated off-site complete with end-
this grout can transfer the full tendon tension force to the concrete within a very anchorages, facilitating faster installation during construction. Additional
short distance (approximately 1 metre). As a result, any inadvertent severing of the lead time may need to be allowed for this fabrication process.
tendon or failure of an end anchorage has only a very localised impact on tendon
performance, and almost never results in tendon ejection from the anchorage. • Improved site productivity
• Increased ultimate strength in flexure • The elimination of the post-stressing grouting process required in bonded
structures improves the site-labour productivity of unbonded post-
• With bonded post-tensioning, any flexure of the structure is directly resisted by tensioning.[9]:5
tendon strains at that same location (i.e. no strain re-distribution occurs). This
results in significantly higher tensile strains in the tendons than if they were • Improved installation flexibility
unbonded, allowing their full yield strength to be realised, and producing a higher
ultimate load capacity. • Unbonded single-strand tendons have greater handling flexibility than
bonded ducting during installation, allowing them a greater ability to be
• Improved crack-control
deviated around service penetrations or obstructions.[9]:5
• In the presence of concrete cracking, bonded tendons respond similarly to
conventional reinforcement (rebar). With the tendons fixed to the concrete at each
• Reduced concrete cover
side of the crack, greater resistance to crack expansion is offered than with
• Unbonded tendons may allow some reduction in concrete element
unbonded tendons, allowing many design codes to specify reduced reinforcement
requirements for bonded post-tensioning.[9]:4[10]:1 thickness, as their smaller size and increased corrosion protection may allow
them to be placed closer to the concrete surface.[2]:8
• Improved fire performance
• Simpler replacement and/or adjustment
• The absence of strain redistribution in bonded tendons may limit the impact that
any localised overheating has on the overall structure. As a result, bonded • Being permanently isolated from the concrete, unbonded tendons are able
structures may display a higher capacity to resist fire conditions than unbonded to be readily de-stressed, re-stressed and/or replaced should they become
ones damaged or need their force levels to be modified in-service.[9]:6
• Superior overload performance
Modern prestressing systems deliver
long-term durability by
• Tendon grouting (bonded tendons)
• Bonded tendons consist of bundled strands placed inside ducts located within the surrounding concrete. To ensure full
protection to the bundled strands, the ducts must be pressure-filled with a corrosion-inhibiting grout, without leaving any
voids, following strand-tensioning.
• Tendon coating (unbonded tendons)
• Unbonded tendons comprise individual strands coated in an anti-corrosion grease or wax, and fitted with a durable plastic-
based full-length sleeve or sheath. The sleeving is required to be undamaged over the tendon length, and it must extend
fully into the anchorage fittings at each end of the tendon.
• Double-layer encapsulation
• Prestressing tendons requiring permanent monitoring and/or force adjustment, such as stay-cables and re-stressable dam
anchors, will typically employ double-layer corrosion protection. Such tendons are composed of individual strands, grease-
coated and sleeved, collected into a strand-bundle and placed inside encapsulating polyethylene outer ducting. The
remaining void space within the duct is pressure-grouted, providing a multi-layer polythene-grout-plastic-grease protection
barrier system for each strand.
• Anchorage protection
• In all post-tensioned installations, protection of the end-anchorages against corrosion is essential, and critically so for
unbonded systems.