A Study on the Estimation of Prestress Losses in Prestressed Concrete Box Girder Bridges

프리스트레스트 콘크리트 박스 거더 교량의 프리스트레스 손실 추정에 관한 연구

This paper aims at estimating instantaneous prestress losses by measuring the actual prestress forces in prestressed concrete (PSC) box girder bridges. Measurement were taken to study initial prestress losses such as friction losses and slip losses. A new strain gauge system was developed to measure strains in internal tendons. The system was installed on a total of 20 tendons in a PSC box girder bridges. The variation of prestress forces were monitored during prestressing tendon and after prestress transfer. The prestress losses are also calculated including friction losses and slip losses. The measured data were compared with the theoretical values. The result shows that the measured prestress forces agree well with the theoretical values. It is shown that prestress force of each strand in the same tendon is a bit different. This study also shows that prestress losses of continuity tendons during prestress transfer are significantly different each other, which results from the variety of buttress location and tendon profile. The present study provides realistic information on the estimation of actual prestress forces and losses in PSC box girder bridges.