An experimental study on the flexural behavior of local prestressed steel–concrete composite continuous box beams

The flexural bearing capacities of three composite continuous box beams with different prestressing degrees were tested and studied to investigate the influences of local prestressing bundles on the deflection, relative slip of interface, strain, and redistribution of the internal force of the steel–concrete composite continuous box beam. Results show that the arrangement of local prestress can not only improve the bending stiffness at the mid-span of the composite continuous box beam, but also significantly enhance the ductility. In the design process of the local prestressed composite continuous box beam, the influence of the slip at the middle support should be fully considered, and the deflection could not be taken as a control factor. The internal force redistribution of the local prestressed continuous box beam is lower than that of the ordinary continuous box beam, but it still has good plastic internal force redistribution. The number of prestressing bundles in the negative moment region is the main factor that affects the internal force redistribution of the middle support.