ABSTRACT
At this point in the history of development of reinforced and prestressed concrete it is necessary to reexamine the fundamental approaches to design of these composite materials. Structural engineering is a worldwide industry. Designers from one nation or a continent are faced with designing a project in
another nation or continent. The decades of efforts dedicated to harmonizing concrete design approaches worldwide have resulted in some successes but in large part have led to further differences and numerous different design procedures. It is this abundance of different design approaches, techniques, and code regulations that justifies and calls for the need for a unification of design approaches throughout the entire range of structural concrete, from plain to fully prestressed [Breen, 1991].
