Koenon of Germany developed subject by reporting in 1907, on losses of prestress due to elastic shortening of concrete and Steiner recognized losses due to shrinkage of concrete around 1908.

The necessity of using high strength steel, concrete and recognisation of losses of prestress due to various causes were observations which resulted in research on prestressed concrete while high strength tendons, bars, rings are used for transmitting prestress and losses of creep, strain and shrinkage are types of loss considered in post and pretensioned members.

Concrete is not able to resist direct tension in comparison of its ability to resist direct compression because of its low tensile strength and brittle nature, it behaves non linearly at all times because it has essentially zero strength in tension it is always used as reinforced concrete, as a composite material and it is a mixture of sand, aggregate, cement and water whereas structures are highly vulnerable to tensile cracking due to very low rmal coefficient of expansion.

Distortion principle of statically indeterminate structures is used by rotation or by displacement and in statistics a structure is statistically indeterminate when static equilibrium equation are insufficient for determining internal forces and reactions on that structure.

Shrinkage of concrete is due to moisture loss resulting in difference in volume results in contraction of concrete on drying and it is based on relative humidity, exposure time, quantity and type of aggregate, water cement ratio in mix.

The prestressed concrete involves many architectural or construction related problems formulated due to curved surfaces and involve sophisticated erection problems, a high quality control is required for production of materials and while placing tendons and when members are subjected to a system of loads n existing problems due to long term creep moments are increased.

Partial prestressing refers to prestressing of concrete members in which some flexural cracking is allowed at full service load and an additional tensile reinforcement is also provided to achieve adequate bending strength.

In reinforced concrete members, prestress commonly introduced is by tensioning steel reinforcement while rings i.e stirrups are used while placing columns or foundation in structures, tendon is a stretched member of a prestressed concrete element which serves purpose of transmitting prestress to concrete and shortening of concrete phenomena occurs while placing of concrete.

The use of prestressed concrete spread rapidly from 1935 onwards and many long span bridges, industrial shell roofs, marine structures, nuclear pressure vessels etc were constructed between 1945 and 1950 in Europe and United states.

Freyssinet attempted to introduce permanently acting forces in concrete to resist elastic forces developed under loads and this idea was later developed under name of prestressing while loading and bending phenomena occurs in a member while placing and during excessive loads and pre-straining occurs in prestressed concrete structures.