CHAPTER 1 —————}. me —— PRINCIPLE AND METHODS OF PRESTRESSING 1.1 INTRODUCTION Prestressing is the deliberate creation of permanent internal stresses in a structure or system in order to improve its performance. Such stresses are designed to counteract those induced by external loadings. Prestressing generally involves at least two materials, the stressor and the stressee which, when acting together, perform better than either one taken separately. Prestressing is a principle. The French mathematician Henri Poincaré once said, "A principle is neither true nor false, it is convenient." The principle of prestressing is indeed very convenient and has been widely applied. Its application to steel and concrete is relatively recent but has taken by far the biggest proportions. The application of prestressing to concrete is in a way a natural result. Concrete is strong in compression and weak in tension. For design purposes its tensile resistance is discounted. Prestressing the concrete produces compressive stresses, either uniform or nonuniform, which will counteract tensile stresses induced by external loadings. The original concept, as promoted by Freyssinet [Refs. 1.5, 1.6], attempted to counteract tensile stresses entirely, thus producing a crack-free material during service. However, it has since evolved to counteract only in part externally- induced tensile stresses, thus allowing tension and controlled cracking in a way similar to reinforced concrete. This has led to what is called partial prestressing Partially prestressed concrete occupies the whole spectrum of the reinforcing range between fully reinforced and fully prestressed concrete. In a way it is a combination of both. Today it has become difficult to talk about either material separately, without talking about their combination. Since essentially they use the same basic components, steel, and concrete, their historical development will eventually be addressed simultaneously. Already, the term “structural concrete” is used by U.S. and European organizations to provide a unifying treatment of the subject. However, in this text we will mostly focus on the development of