SWith the maturity of bridge prestressing technology external prestressing technology as an important branch of post-tensioning prestressing system is gradually becoming popular. At present, external prestressing technology has been flexibly applied to the design and reinforcement of various bridge structures, resulting in many efficient and fast bridge construction methods.The technology is seldom combined with continuous steel box girder Bridges. Taking a bridge in Shanghai as the background, this paper uses finite element modeling to analyze the role of external prestressing technology in continuous steel box girder bridge, providing reference for the design of long span steel bridge.