First, a brief survey of the development and characteristics of glass fiber prestressing bars is given. The system was developed in Germany and has been applied in three highway bridges and one pedestrian bridge. The main part of the paper deals with loading tests on beams prestressed with glass fiber tendons. The tests were performed in the Magnel Laboratory of the University of Ghent. Three short beams, each with a span of 6ft 7 in. (2m), and a long beam, with a span of 65ft 7 in. (20m), were loaded to failure. In the glass fiber bars, optical sensors and copper wire sensors were integrated, thus allowing long-term monitoring of the tendons. Although the paper deals mainly with the structural behavior of the beams, the test program was also used to evaluate these nondestructive techniques by comparing the results with conventional deformation measurements.
