Approximately 40 percent of the bridges in the United States are classified as deficient and in need of rehabilitation or replacement. Of these bridges, many are classified as deficient because their load-carrying capacity is inadequate for today's increased traffic. This insufficient load-carrying capacity has resulted from poor maintenance, increase in legal load limits, deck overlays, changes in design specifications, and other factors. In response to the need for a simple, efficient procedure for strengthening existing bridges, the authors have been investigating the use of post-tensioning. They have investigated its use on simple span bridges as well as continuous span bridges. Various post-tensioning schemes have been tested on laboratory models and actual bridges. The paper briefly reviews the post-tensioning research that has been completed by the authors in the past few years. This work indicates that post-tensioning is a viable, economical technique for flexural strengthening of steel-beam composite-concrete deck bridges.

The use of tendons placed outside the concrete for the longitudinal prestressing of bridge decks is particularly well suited to the triangulated trusses that have now proven effective. Experience acquired first on the Tehran Stadium roofing (internal tendons) and then on the externally prestressed Bubiyan Bridge in Kuwait has highlighted the numerous advantages to be derived from the latter system. The technology has, therefore, been used again, with external tendons, in the construction of the Sylans and Glacieres viaducts located along the Macon-Geneva-Mont Blanc highway in France, on behalf of the Societe des Autoroutes Paris Rhin-Rhone. The two viaducts have a total length of 1500 m. Each consists of two parallel decks, 10.75 m wide. Typical spans are 60 m long. The deck is precast in forms as a series of 4.66 m long elements and erected by sequential cantilevering using a launching girder.

Paper describes the properties of parallel-lay ropes with a polyaramid (Kelvar 49) core, with particular reference to the long-term properties that are important to the designers of prestressing systems. The anchorage and prestressing systems are described, and results are given for stress-strain, relaxation, creep, stress-rupture, and fatigue behavior. Durability and thermal response are also considered, and it is inferred that the lack of corrosion, in addition to the high strength and high stiffness, makes these materials ideal for use as prestressing tendons where the concrete cannot be used to provide corrosion protection to steel. Descriptions are given of tests on beams prestressed with external tendons, showing that a ductile response can be achieved in a beam made from two brittle materials. It is concluded that these materials will extend the range of structures that can be built with prestressed concrete, and will at last allow the realization of the full potential of externally prestressed concrete.

A research project is currently underway at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, to establish the feasibility of an alternative structural system for short-span highway bridges. Concerns over the long-term durability of structural systems currently used in the 25 to 40 m span range provided the primary motivation for the study. The proposed system consists of a solid concrete slab that is externally prestressed. The external tendons are deviated at the third points of each span using struts. A 1:3-scale model bridge has been constructed and is currently being tested to verify the behavior of the bridge under permanent, service, and ultimate static loads, as well as dynamic and fatigue loads. The favorable results obtained thus far have confirmed the feasibility of the proposed structural system, and will serve as a basis for extending the concept to spans greater than 40 m in length.

A laboratory investigation was performed to study deviation saddles, a type of tendon deviator used in externally post-tensioned precast segmental box girder bridges. Ten reduced-scale models of deviation saddles were fabricated and loaded to ultimate using a specially designed testing apparatus that applied load to each deviator just as would be applied to a deviator in a bridge. The objectives of the study were to: experimentally investigate the strength and ductility of deviators; evaluate deviator details in light of observed performance; define behavioral models for deviators; determine the effects of using epoxy-coated reinforcement; and establish design criteria. Data from the test series are presented, two analysis techniques are formulated, and design recommendations are made for design of tendon deviators.