On Sat, 12 Jul 2003 13:20:40 +0100, Andrew Heggie
wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jul 2003 00:38:01 +0100, Andy Dingley
wrote:

The point of steelwork in concrete is to compress the
concrete by pre-tensioning the steelwork.

I knew it was to add tensile strength but thought the compressing
function was only in pre stressed concrete.

Yes, _pre-_tensioning was inaccurate wording on my part. That's just
if they're tensioned whilst curing. The others only come into force
if there's a tensile force or bending moment applied to the concrete.