Vincent T. H. CHU

The corrosion of steel reinforcement inside a concrete structure is undesirable in the following ways:

(i) The presence of rust impairs the bond strength of deformed reinforcement because corrosion occurs at the raised ribs and fills the gap between ribs, thus evening out the original deformed shape. In essence, the bond between concrete and deformed bars originates from the mechanical lock between the raised ribs and concrete. The reduction of mechanical locks by corrosion results in the decline in bond strength with concrete.

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The use of links for column design in Britain is very popular. However, in U.S.A. engineers tend to use helical reinforcement instead of normal links because helical reinforcement has the potential advantage of protecting columns/piles against seismic loads.

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In BS8110 a modification factor is applied to span/depth ratio to take into account the effect of tension reinforcement. In fact, deflection of concrete structure is affected by the stress and the amount of tension reinforcement.

To illustrate their relationship, let’s consider the following equation relating to beam curvature:

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In some design codes it specifies that the area of longitudinal steel reinforcement should be not less than a certain percentage of the sectional area of column. Firstly, the limitation of steel ratio for columns helps to guard against potential failure in tension. Tension may be induced in columns during the design life of the concrete structures. For instance, tension is induced in columns in case there is uneven settlement of the building foundation, or upper floors above the column are totally unloaded while the floors below the column are severely loaded. Secondly, owing to the effect of creep and shrinkage, there will be a redistribution of loads between concrete and steel reinforcement. Consequently, the steel reinforcement may yield easily in case a lower limit of steel area is not established.

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In BS8110 for reinforced concrete design, it states that longer tension lap lengths have to be provided at the top of concrete members. The reason behind this is that the amount of compaction of the top of concrete members during concrete placing is more likely to be less than the remaining concrete sections. Moreover, owing to the possible effect of segregation and bleeding, the upper layer of concrete section tends to be of lower strength when compared with other locations.

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In addition to shear resistance provided by shear reinforcement, shear forces in a concrete section is also resisted by concrete compression force (compressive forces enhances higher shear strength), dowel actions and aggregate interlocking. The presence of longitudinal steel contributes to the enhancement of shear strength of concrete section in the following ways:

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In some structural codes, the lap length of reinforcement is simplified to be a certain percentage (e.g. 25%) higher than the anchorage length. This requirement is to cater for stress concentrations at the end of lap bars.

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Tension anchorage length of steel reinforcement in concrete depends on bond strength. When steel reinforcement is anchored to concrete and is subjected to compressive forces, the resistance is provided by the bond strength between concrete and steel and the bearing pressure at the reinforcement end.

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Beams may be designed to be larger than required for strength consideration owing to aesthetics or other reasons. As such, the corresponding steel ratio is very low and the moment capacity of pure concrete section based on the modulus of rupture is higher than its ultimate moment of resistance. As a result, reinforcement yields first and extremely wide cracks will be formed. A minimum area of reinforcement is specified to avoid the formation of wide cracks.

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In some codes, a minimum distance between bars is specified to allow for sufficient space to accommodate internal vibrators during compaction.

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