Research on the Length of Plastic Hinge of Partially Prestressed Beams

In order to study the length of the plastic zone in a PPC beam, a series of simply supported beam and continuous beam models were tested. The test results showed that the occurrence of the plastic hinge is postponed by the increase inRPPCat the middle span and between the intermediate supports, and that the reinforcement ratio had significant influence on the shape of M-φcurve. A formula proposed to calculate the length of the plastic hinge zone in PPC continuous beams with varied sections and differentRPPC. The simplicity and practicability of the formula was validated with the test results.