Awarded as the best online publication by CIDC

Under what situation shall engineers use jacking at one end only and from both ends in prestressing work?

During prestressing operation at one end, frictional losses will occur and the prestressing force decreases along the length of tendon until reaching the other end. These frictional losses include the friction induced due to a change of curvature of tendon duct and also the wobble effect due to deviation of duct alignment from the centerline. Therefore, the prestress force in the mid-span or at the other end will be greatly reduced in case the frictional loss is high. Consequently, prestressing, from both ends for a single span i.e. prestressing one-half of total tendons at one end and the remaining half at the other end is carried out to enable a even distribution and to provide symmetry of prestress force along the structure.

In fact, stressing at one end only has the potential advantage of lower cost when compared with stressing from both ends. For multiple spans (e.g. two spans) with unequal span length, jacking is usually carried out at the end of the longer span so as to provide a higher prestress force at the location of maximum positive moment. On the contrary, jacking from the end of the shorter span would be conducted if the negative moment at the intermediate support controls the prestress force. However, if the total span length is sufficiently long, jacking from both ends should be considered.

Advertisements

This question is taken from book named – A Self Learning Manual – Mastering Different Fields of Civil Engineering Works (VC-Q-A-Method) by Vincent T. H. CHU.

Share this post

Kanwarjot Singh

Kanwarjot Singh is the founder of Civil Engineering Portal, a leading civil engineering website which has been awarded as the best online publication by CIDC. He did his BE civil from Thapar University, Patiala and has been working on this website with his team of Civil Engineers.

If you have a query, you can ask a question here.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Ask a question