Supports and prestressing

[gavin-90]

I'm using the special load 'Prestressing Forces' to mimic a pretensioned beam, but when I apply support conditions the prestress force is resisted by the support instead of being applied to the member. e.g if a fixed support is applied all of the moment is resisted by the support and no moment is transfered to the member.

Is there a way to apply the support conditions after the prestressing forces have been applied to the member?

Thanks

[Artur.Kosakowski · Accepted solution]

First of all mind that Robot is not intended for prestress beams and has limitations in this area of application.

The only approach for modeling such effects (an element has got some set of forces already applied before it is 'connected' with the rest of a structure) is to use a phased model. In such case in the phase 1 you would need to model a simply supported beam with the prestress load and then in the phase 2 change the supports to fixed ones. Finally you would need to collect both phases and create combination with the loads from the first and the second phases.

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