Abstract: Formulations of the mixed cable-beam finite element method suitable for simulating a prestressed cable-beam structure were presented based on the incremental form of the virtual work principle, The attention is mainly paid to the interaction in constructing the prestressed cable-beam structure and the optimization of structure performance. Key point is to enforce initial displacements by adjusting the position of specified points in the structure. By using the proposed method, the whole process of constructing a prestressed cable-beam structure was simulated. The numerical results demonstrate that the proposed method is feasible.