Quote Originally Posted by ckelloug View Post
Geof,

Good comment regarding alkaline generally inhibiting corrosion in steel.

I also note that the concentrated KOH solution around my lab tends to do bad things to most everything it comes in contact with. . .

All I'm trying to say by "null out the deflection" is that you can reduce the strain to zero in the beam under static loading by adding a tension member and tension such that it creates an opposite deflection to that of the beam under gravity and cancels out the beam's own static deflection.
Yes concentrated Potassium Hydroxide will eat just about anything, you included. It is the region around 7.5 to 8.5 that corrosion of steel is minimal.

I thought ab bit more about your tensioning and realised you are also possibly dealing with a pseudo modulus because voids in the composite close up under compression. Tension will close these up so you will get a true modulus and of course you do get a combined one taking into account the two materials.