A new design method for prestressed concrete continuous flat slabs

This paper presents a simple but relatively accurate procedure for the analysis of unbonded prestressed continuous flat slabs. Bi‐circular curves instead of conventional parabolic ones are introduced to obtain the characteristic parameters of the curved tendon profiles. Based on the proposed tendon profile and theory of thin plates, a series of simple formulae are derived to compute the bending moments of flat slabs. The validity of the proposed method is demonstrated by comparing the results with those obtained from finite element analysis. The results of the analysis presented in this paper indicate that the proposed method turns out to be convenient and reasonably accurate in the analysis of prestressed flat slabs. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.