What is Reinforced Concrete Design & Its Advantages?

Structure designing involves election of the right materials in the right proportion while taking into account the engineering, technology and art factors. Each structure has its purpose and it should meet the conditions of serviceability, safety, functionality and economy. Concrete is brittle when it solidifies and has strong compression. It also has weak tension. All these reasons require steel to be used inside concrete to help strengthen and reinforce its tensile strength. This is why proper reinforced concrete design is crucial for construction different types of structures.

What is Reinforced Concrete?

Reinforced concrete is the combination of concrete and steel bar. The steel is used as reinforcement and in some cases other materials can be used for this purpose. The combination provides steel’s tensile strength and concrete’s compressive strength. When combined together, each material’s strengths get compounded. The different materials work together to resist different types of load. While the steel component helps in resistant all types of tension forces, the cement concrete helps in resisting compression. The concrete is supplied at the job site in concrete mixing truck.
The steel used in reinforced concrete design should have minimum deformations for providing interlocking and stronger bonds between the two materials. When hardened concrete fully surrounds steel, it becomes an integral part of the overall structure. This gives this mixture the term, “reinforced concrete.” It is a structural material that is widely used in making different types of structures.

Advantages

There are many advantages of using rmc concrete as listed here:

• Reinforced concrete offers much higher compressive strength and tension relative to most of the other materials used in the construction industry.

• It has very long lifecycle with minimal maintenance costs.

• Reinforced rmc concrete has even higher fire-resistance compared to steel. It can resist fire for longer duration.

• You can cast it into any shape. This is why it is widely used with pre-casts.

• It is a highly economical structural material for making large structures such as dams and piers.

• Steel adds its 15-times compressive strength to structural concrete. It also has 100 times the tensile strength.

• The use of steel in reinforced concrete design will help in reducing the cross-section dimensions of structural units.

• It also helps in reducing the need for skilled labor for erecting structures.

Reinforced concrete also has good weather resistance. It is also much more durable against most other types of building systems available today. During the early stages the fluid form of the material allows it to be molded into almost any shape. It can work as a highly rigid structure that suffers minimal amount of deflection.

The ready mix concrete is typically supplied in a concrete mixer truck and can be used anywhere. It can be used even in places where there is no space for mixing concrete in the traditional way. Reinforced concrete has been proven as an economic building material. It has become the standard material for most construction projects because of all the advantages it offers.