According to the phenomenon of laminating crack while tensioning the pre-stressed cables at bottom slab in closure segment for prestressed concrete continuous box girder bridges constructed by hanging basket, different failure criterions of concrete are introduced in this paper. It indicates from theory that the failure criteria under biaxial stress is more applicable to anti-crack design than the maximum tensile stress criterion for closure segment of box girder bridges. Based on 8 typical bridges that selected as the research objects, the FEM (finite element method)models are established and the transverse and vertical stress between pre-stressed tendons at bottom slab in closure segment are obtained; the stress state and security of bottom slab under different failure criteria are forecasted and compared with field test data. Finally, the theoretical analysis is proved. The conclusions can be regarded as reference for the anti-crack design of similar bridges.