HISTORICAL-TECHNICAL SERIES

Excerpts From the Lectures of

Gustave Magnel
Professor Gustave Magnel of Belgium, designer of the Walnut Lane
Memorial Bridge (America’s first major prestressed concrete structure)
was largely responsible for introducing prestressed concrete to the
United States. The late great teacher and eminent practicing engineer
from the University of Ghent (Belgium) contributed enormously to
the acceptance and development of prestressed concrete worldwide.
Beyond that, however, as attested unanimously by all of his students,
he was the most articulate teacher of his time. Here, in slightly edited
form, are excerpts from some of his memorable lectures.

• On Complicated Formulas (below the neutral axis), we notice

Gustave Magnel
(1889-1955)
“A theory should be made as
simple as possible but not so
simple that it does not
comform with reality.”
Albert Einstein
When I first gave lectures, I used to
cover the blackboard with complicated
formulas – not on such a tiny one as
this, but on a big blackboard which
has several sections such as are found
in the lecture rooms of the Belgian
University. I was so proud of myself
because I thought I was very clever.
But now, since I am older, I have un-
derstood that writing complicated for-
mulas does not really solve any practi-
cal problems.
• In Explaining the Action
of Prestressing in a Statically
Determinate Beam
Take the simple case of a beam rest-
ing on two supports. If we apply a pre-
stress force at the ends of the beam
that the beam cambers upwards due to
the prestressing moment (prestress
force × its eccentricity). At the com-
pletion of prestressing, the beam still
rests on the two end supports. What
are the reactions on those two end
supports? Well, if everything is sym-
metrical, the reaction at each support
is equal to one-half the weight of the
beam. What else could it be? And
whether we apply a very large pre-
stress force or a small one, each reac-
tion is always equal to one-half the
weight of the beam. It is statically de-
terminate.
• On the Definition of Limit Design
For years and until very recently, all
engineers made designs based on cal-

16 PCI JOURNAL
culations of stresses. They take a nice
sheet of paper – very clean – and they
make very clever calculations on them
and they come to the conclusion that in
that beam the concrete stress is 700 psi
– or whatever it is – and the steel stress
is 18,000 psi. And, they are satisfied –
if those figures comply with the regu-
lations or with specifications or the
code, or whatever one calls them – en-
gineers are satisfied with that.
But, if you think that the beam is
satisfied – if you think the beam takes
any account of what you have written
in those sheets – even if there are no
mistakes – no arithmetical mistakes,
numerical mistakes on those sheets –
well, then you are wrong! Who is the
authority who knows about that?
There is only one authority in the
world who knows what happens in a
beam – and that is the beam itself. My
method is to go directly to the beam
and ask it, “Say, my dear beam, tell
me what are your stresses? What is
your moment of rupture?”
• On Hooke’s Law
Yes, indeed, engineers don’t know
anything else – sure enough they mod-
ify it, they call it the Theorem of Three
Moments, Theory of Least Work, and
Formulas for Bending and Torsion.
But it is always Hooke’s Law (σ = Eε),
whether written in red or green, En-
glish, German or Chinese – or in all
languages. But, it is always the same
thing, and that thing is wrong! We can-
not apply Hooke’s Law once the loads
are so high that the beam cracks and
the materials are in a state of partial
plasticity; Hooke’s Law doesn’t apply
any more. And, if one tries to make
theories at that stage of beam loading –
well, one finds immediately that it is
very difficult, because we do not know
the behavior of concrete and steel in
the range between the cracking point
and the breaking point.
• On Beam Design
Designing a beam is a question of
proportion – engineering is not a sci-
ence – it’s an art. You must have some
experience to draw upon; otherwise,
you’ll never do anything. A man, who
studies very thoroughly my book on
prestressed concrete, can make per-
July-August 2004
haps a design, but it will be a foolish
design – not an economical design.
You must have done it over and over
again, and have some practical experi-
ence before you consider it. And then,
you have to determine the depth of the
beam – well, that’s the only element I
must take arbitrarily. Ja, arbitrarily.
But in practice it is not – generally,
the depth is something that you have
to maintain…
• In Explaining Continuity
in a Prestressed Beam
Let us now consider a continuous
beam having two equal spans. We pre-
stress the beam with tendons going
from one end to the other. Assume for
the time being that the central support
is missing – the beam would also
curve upward like the simply sup-
ported beam. But the central support is
there and it says to the beam, “Hey,
my little beam, please, you may not
lift up for I’m keeping you down.” In
other words, the support can only keep
that beam down by exerting an exter-
nal force, i.e., an anchorage force
downward – and that is only possible
due to simple statics: if we have at
each of the outside supports an up-
ward reaction equal to one-half of the
anchorage force.
With these new forces acting on the
beam, we have a new kind of bending
moment diagram. In fact, it means that
we get so-called “secondary mo-
ments” in the beam. These secondary
moments are great or small, positive
or negative, depending upon the mag-
nitude and shape of the stressed ten-
don and the cross section of the beam.
We should emphasize the fact that the
term “secondary” is a misnomer be-
cause the “secondary moments” can
be fairly large.
• On Safety Factors
Everyone loves to talk about safety
factors but nothing is more compli-
cated or confusing. It is meaningless
to talk about safety factors unless you
explain what it is related to for a par-
ticular case. (Does it, for example, re-
late to cracking, breaking or fatigue
strength?) To just say that you have a
safety factor of 2, 2.5, 2.7, or 3 has no
meaning. That depends more on one’s
bank account! Ja, if you can afford to
spend a lot of money – if you are, say,
the president of General Motors or
somebody like that, you see it doesn’t
matter how strong you make the beam
– you can afford to have a safety fac-
tor of three or more. However, if you
have a very tight budget, you will
probably use a safety factor of two
(but it must be at least two).
If we knew, for example, that we
could place on a beam twice the work-
ing load – well, we would sleep very
quietly during the night. We would
say – well, nobody will put twice the
working load on the beam, and if
somebody does, we will “hang” him
for it! Let the beam then collapse – I,
the engineer, am no longer responsi-
ble. But, we must develop a theory
which will allow us to calculate for a
given cross-section at midspan, say, of
a simply supported beam, the moment
of rupture – that’s what we must know
for that beam.
• On Model Testing
If you want to derive meaningful
conclusions, perform your tests on
real, big beams (60, 70, 100 or 150-ft
spans) – not toys of 3 or 4 ft long, 2 or
3 in. deep, which I call “confidential”
beams.
• On False Prophets
Beware of people who are trying to
sell you new patents or prestressing
systems. Most of the time these people
know very little about engineering or
prestressing principles. These devices
are only worth considering after full-
scale testing.
• On Professional Ethics
If you cannot design a prestressed
concrete structure on a sound and eco-
nomical basis, don’t build it! Above
all, be an engineer with a professional
conscience. Make the structure right!
[Republished from “Magnel’s Impact
on the Advent of Prestressed Concrete,”
by Charles C. Zollman, PCI JOURNAL,
V. 23, No. 3, May-June 1978, pp. 32-33,
and from “Commemoration of Magnel’s
100th Birthday Anniversary,”
PCI JOURNAL, V. 35, No. 3, pp. 78-81.]
17
 HISTORICAL-TECHNICAL SERIES

What It takes to Convert

Prestressed Concrete Into a
Preferred Construction Material
Arthur R. Anderson
(1910-1995)
The late Art Anderson, co-founder of Concrete Technology
Corporation and ABAM Engineers, Inc., Tacoma, Washington, was a
visionary and a major pioneer of the precast, prestressed concrete
industry. After obtaining a BS degree in civil engineering from the
University of Washington, he went on to earn a doctorate from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1949, he performed the
instrumentation of the prototype girder for the Walnut Lane Bridge. He
then became famous for designing and building some of the most
imaginative prestressed concrete structures such as the 21-story
Norton Building, the Disney Monorail and the ARCO floating vessel.
Later, Dr. Anderson served as president of both the ACI and PCI. A
prolific writer, he was the author of numerous technical papers, many
of which appeared in the PCI JOURNAL. In recognition of Anderson’s
enormous contributions to the industry and Institute, PCI awarded him
the Medal of Honor and Fellow Award. Written about fifty years ago,
many of the ideas presented in this article are still pertinent today.

“They copied all they could
follow but they could not
copy my mind so I left them
sweating and swearing
a year and a half behind.”
Rudyard Kipling
new building material is mak-
A ing its impact on architecture,
engineering and construction.
Only recently, the prestigious Wall
Street Journal featured a front page
column under the headline “Pre-
stressed Concrete Stars as a Substitute
for Scarce Steel Beams.”
No one will doubt that the steel
shortage has created a market for pre-
stressed concrete. However, anyone
giving serious consideration to enter-
ing the prestressed concrete business
should have more than a structural
steel shortage as an incentive for
“jumping in.”
During the past few years, pre-
stressed concrete has clearly grown
from a substitute material to a recog-
nized and indeed preferred construction
method for many types of structures.
To build a successful prestressed
concrete business, a potential in-
vestor should have answers to the
following questions:
1. What is the potential market?

18 PCI JOURNAL
 2. How can this market be devel-
oped; and how much of it can I rea-
sonably expect to get?
3. What types of products should the
plant manufacture?
4. What are the technological as-
pects, and what kind of people consti-
tute the successful organization of a
successful prestressed concrete busi-
ness?
5. What kind of plant, equipment,
and facilities are required?
6. How much land is required for a
suitable plant site?
7. How much will it cost?
For an investor, Questions 1 and 2
are the most important to consider.
In the foreseeable future, the market
potential for prestressed concrete ap-
pears excellent. The multi-billion dol-
lar federal highway program will re-
quire thousands of structures, ideally
constructed from prestressed concrete.
New construction of schools, offices
and other public buildings, sports fa-
cilities and other public buildings will
continue at a high rate because of the
continuing population growth in the
United States.
Expansion in the industry goes
ahead at top level, to keep pace with
the increasing market for products de-
manded by a nation whose standard of
living is constantly rising. Thus, a
tremendous potential market for basic
structural elements in prestressed con-
crete already exists.
Assuming that an investor decides
to get into the prestressing business,
he should get the best technical advice
on how to get started. For example, he
should understand the difference be-
tween post-tensioning and pretension-
ing, know the advantages of both sys-
tems and how they interact with each
other. He should determine whether he
wants to pursue an “on-the-job” or
factory type of production. Both meth-
ods will have their place in the future
of the American construction industry.
I believe that the high standard of
living in the United States has resulted
from mass production of consumer
goods in well-managed factories with
production-line methods (as was pio-
neered by the automobile industry).
For this reason, the future for the long
range success of prestressed concrete
should also be based on mass produc-
July-August 2004
tion in a factory. This leads up to
Question 2 above, namely, “How can
this market be developed?”
Promoting and selling prestressed
concrete is highly technical. It would
be extremely difficult for a salesman
to make calls on prospective cus-
tomers, and bring back a book full of
orders. On the contrary, selling pre-
stressed concrete must start at the out-
set of the design of a new project, i.e.,
trying to get a voice at the table
where the big decisions are made.
Selling of this kind requires a com-
pany representative capable of calling
on engineers and architects at the pre-
liminary design stage. The sales repre-
sentative should be qualified to dis-
cuss intelligently the designer’s
problems; and above all, he must be
well-armed with cost data. Just as with
all types of engineering sales, it is the
person best equipped with good tech-
nical answers who has the best chance
of eventually getting the order for his
company.
From my experience, progress in
factory-produced prestressed concrete
construction will be tremendously in-
fluenced by the ability and imagina-
tion of designers, namely, the archi-
tects and engineers. Fortunate indeed
is the company that has on its staff a
design consultant with enough cre-
ative ability and imagination to de-
velop structures with architectural
composition of enduring beauty de-
rived from the repetition of a few
basic standard elements – in this case,
from precast and prestressed concrete
produced by mass production.
Thus, one of the big selling jobs in
the precast, prestressed concrete
business is really “how to design it.”
It is important to keep the number of
product types to a minimum and the
number of each type a maximum, and
equally important to consider details
of the connections in the field.
A good designer has a feeling for
problems of connecting the structural
elements, and a knowledge of how
much a crane can lift at a given radius
and what kind of dimensional toler-
ances to allow in precast concrete ele-
ments. He understands the forces and
movements caused by temperature
changes as well as those caused by de-
flection due to design loads.
A good designer must also develop
a sense of balance between material
and labor costs. Granted that the
American economy attaches a pre-
mium to labor cost as contrasted with
the European practice of trying to save
every pound of material; yet I have
seen many examples of prestressed
concrete structures in the United
States where a considerable amount of
material could have been saved with-
out increasing the labor costs.
You may well ask, “Why all the
fuss about design to sell prestressed
concrete?” The answer to this question
goes back to the opening paragraph in
this article regarding the use of pre-
stressed concrete as a substitute mate-
rial for scarce steel. When steel be-
comes plentiful again, where will the
market be for prestressed concrete?
Obviously, to be competitive with
steel or other construction materials,
prestressed concrete must become a
preferred material of construction, and
this idea must be “sold” to the people
who do the design.
It will be up to the manufacturers of
prestressed concrete to see that the de-
signers are sold. To do this:
• The company looking for a market
in prestressed concrete must be pre-
pared to develop standard structural
sections comparable to the standard
rolled steel sections.
• Moreover, the company must be in
a position to produce these sections to
a guaranteed performance, and pro-
vide adequate design information
about these standard sections to those
who would be in a position to specify
them.
• The company must be able to offer
its products at a competitive price.
• Lastly, and most importantly, the
company must have a knowledgeable
technical salesman to call upon ar-
chitects and engineers at the prelimi-
nary and actual design phases of a
project.
If we vigorously pursue the above, I
have no doubt at all that the future of
precast, prestressed concrete will be
very promising indeed.
[Note: Republished from “An Adventure
in Prestressed Concrete,” by Arthur R.
Anderson, PCI JOURNAL, V. 24, No. 5,
September-October 1979, pp. 90-113.]
19