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The U-shaped girder is a type of open thin-walled structure, which is used in urban rail transit engineering. Although it employs polypropylene fiber concrete to avoid cracks, the girder is still easier to crack than other traditional structures owing to its special open thin-walled cross section. In this study, a cracking accident of a U-shaped girder, which happened during the prestressed steel tensioning, was studied by field investigation and mechanical analysis through the finite element (FE) method. An outline of the cracks was presented. The nonlinear material properties of the polypropylene fiber concrete and steel were discussed and used in the finite element model. The effects of the main design parameters, such as the flange slab thickness, anchorage position, and prestressed steel layout, were evaluated based on the results of the FE analysis. The results indicate that the extremely low rigidity of the web and oversize of the web longitudinal prestressed steels are the main reasons for the cracks. The risk of cracks can be reduced by increasing the thickness of the flange slab and changing the anchorage position and prestressed steel layout. Some suggestions are provided for avoiding cracks based on the results of the research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]