This paper presents an experimental research work to evaluate prestress losses in pretensioned prestressed concrete. An experimental program including variables such as concrete mix design, specimen cross-section size and concrete age at the prestress transfer was carried out. Several pretensioned prestressed concrete prismatic specimens were made and tested using the ECADA+ test method, based on measuring prestressing reinforcement force. In addition, specimens were instrumented to obtain the longitudinal concrete strains profiles at any time. Measurements from both techniques were taken over 1 year. Measured prestress losses included elastic shortening losses and time-dependent losses due to concrete shrinkage and creep. A coefficient to account for the relationship between the prestress losses from the measured prestressing forces and the actual prestress losses from concrete compressive strains is proposed. The experimental results were compared with the predicted prestress losses using methods from several codes.

Funding for this experimental research work has been provided by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science and ERDF (Project BIA2006-05521 and Project BIA2009-12722). Tests have been conducted at the Institute of Concrete Science and Technology (ICI-TECH), at the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia (Spain).