Control of Cracking in Precast, Prestressed Concrete Panels for Bridge Decks

The objective of this study was to reduce the collinear cracking that can occur during fabrication and transportation of precast, prestressed concrete panels for bridge decks. It was found that, lowering initial prestress from 189 to 169 ksi (1300 to 1165 MPa) and using a lump-sum prestress loss of 25 ksi (170 MPa) will result in a panel that had an effective prestress level that exceeded the current design based on a 45 ksi (310 MPa) lump-sum prestress loss. As a result, shear and flexural design are based on the same effective prestress levels and the panels meet serviceability requirements.