On behalf of PCI, please accept our gratitude for advising one or more Big Beam teams. We understand that
participation in the Big Beam takes a large amount of your time and is a commitment. We appreciate your
efforts and hope that participation in the contest benefits your students. We believe that the Big Beam
contest benefits both your students and the precast, prestressed concrete industry.
The Student Education Committee and the Big Beam judges have compiled some background information that
may aid you in advising your team. However, our first priority is that this contest helps you meet the
pedagogical needs of your class.
PCI is here to help you. If you have any questions about the contest, please feel free to contact us if you have
any questions, comments or concerns. Another excellent resource is your PCI Regional Director. You can find
contact information on the PCI Regions. Regional Directors can
help you find a PCI Producer Member to work with and help you and your students get access to PCI Design Publications.
The goal of the contest is for students to design and test a prestressed beam. We have tried to make the beam
small enough that it can be tested at most university labs but also large enough that real, full-size materials can
be used. Ideally, the students get to see the behavior of a beam and see how their design calculations
compare to actual performance.
Students are required to complete the actual design, but you, the PCI Producer Member and any competent,
interested third party (like a local precast specialty engineer) can assist. Students benefit from this advice.
Students are encouraged to discuss the final design with the PCI Producer Member who may give them
valuable advice on constructability.
We encourage the use of the new ACI/PCI 319-25 as the code used in design. This code is the result of many
years of work by PCI to create a separate document for precast/prestressed members. The new 9th edition of the PCI Design Handbook is great resource for designing under ACI/PCI 319. However, we know that some of
you teach prestressed concrete in a bridge design class so the AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specifications can
be used in place of ACI/PCI 319. The PCI Bridge Design Manual is available to assist students designing under
the AASHTO code. For materials specifications, students should use ASTM or the equivalent AASHTO
specifications.
International entries can use your country’s equivalent building or bridge code and material specifications.
Canadian entries are encouraged to contact the Canadian Precast Prestressed Concrete Institute for assistance
and information.
Students may use a concrete mixture from the PCI Producer Member. In fact, this is encouraged unless you
have some pedagogical reason to have them create a new mixture design. It is common in practice to use a
Producer Member’s concrete mixture as this is the most economical. There is additional cost in a real project if
a Producer Member has to create a new concrete mixture. Students also benefit as the Producer Member
will have a record of the performance of this mix that the students can use. We do require that students
discuss the mixture used and why it was chosen.
We encourage the students to participate in the construction of the Big Beam to the extent this can be done
safely. However, both you and the PCI Producer Member have the final call on this. Safety is always first.
The most exciting part is the test. Students get to see how well the beam performs, or sometimes, does not
perform. We do get feedback from faculty who note that sometimes success comes from failure where the
faculty can show the students what the students did correctly and incorrectly in the safety of a laboratory.
For the final report, please review this with the students and be sure all the information is there. Sometime
the students make mistakes in calculations of things like cost or weight. If the judges have the information, the
judges are permitted to correct the entry rather than giving a low score. The judges also review the design
calculations for accuracy and practicality.
The judges find the “What we learned” essays particularly valuable in judging the report. There is a prize for
the best report so please remind the students that the report is important. We have tried to structure the
report so that it could also be used for grading in the class.
Finally, the videos are for fun. Originally, the video was just to document the test. However, we got so many
clever videos that we added this as a prize category. To see past video submissions, check out our Big Beam YouTube Channel.
Just FYI – please talk to the students BEFORE they make the video. We get videos where students are not
wearing proper Personal Protective Equipment. Your university safety officer might not like that.
Again, our thanks for participating. Please email education@pci.org with any questions or comments and also
link up with your local regional director.