Prestressed steel enables the designer to achieve a greater elastic range than is possible for an identical non-prestressed member. This makes a prestressed steel member advantageous to resist relatively large overloads without suffering permanent distortion. Prestressing is a means of efficiently utilizing various strength steels in built-up beams or girders, so that significant savings in weight and depth of members can be achieved. This is accomplished without reduction in the factor of safety against yielding for any of the steels, but does reduce the margin of safety against plastic mechanism.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
A 1968 study studied this question.