Discussion

Valerio et al. (2011) make reference to the strength of the beams (for example to ‘significant enhancement to the beam capacity’ in the second conclusion), whereas as far as one can tell there is no increase in beam strength at all. The structure is made stronger by the lateral prestressing, but that is dependent on two things: first there has to be load transfer from the loaded beam to adjacent beams and second the adjacent beams must be capable of taking that load. If all the beams in a deck were loaded, then as this contributor understands it, there...