RESEARCH STATUS AND PERSPECTIVE ON EXTERNALLY PRESTRESSED STEEL-CONCRETE COMPOSITE BEAMS

An externally prestressed steel-concrete composite beam is a new type of structural member combining a steel-concrete composite beam and prestressing technique. Compared with traditional steel-concrete composite beams, prestressed steel-concrete composite beams have six major advantages: 1) increasing the ultimate loading capacity; 2) extending the elastic range of structural behavior; 3) improving the fatigue and fracture behavior; 4) fully utilizing the materials and reducing the structural height and weight; 5) decreasing the deformation under service loading; 6) being helpful to the crack-width control. Based on the review of available research work of externally prestressed steel-concrete composite beams, the research projects to be conducted are proposed.