Test program to assess the ultimate behaviour of externally prestressed concrete beams

Abstract

The research team of the Bridge Section of the Technical University of Catalunya has been developing in the recent years a topic related with external prestressing in bridges. As a part of this research program we are now involved in the testing up to failure in the Laboratory of a set of scaled concrete beams with external prestressing. The cross-section is vox-girder and it is intented to carry out the tests on nine different beams: - 3 simple supported, without construction joints and with 7,20 m span-length and different amopunt of external prestressing. - 3 simple supported made of several precast segments, with 7,20 span-length and different amount of prestressing. - 3 continuous (two-span) beams, without construction joints and span lengths of 7,20 m, with different load configuration and amount of prestressing. In the paper, the planned testing program and the objectives, jointly with the full description of the speciments to be tested and the equipment facilities (instrumentation, data acquisition and loading patterns) to be used, are fully described.