These days, builders have several variety of materials to choose from for construction. One of the most essential and versatile of those materials is stainless steel rebars, or reinforcing bars. In the field of construction, a rebar is a metal rod, which mainly provides shape and stability to reinforced cement structures. It is usually cast into the structure before the cement is poured. Let us look at some of the aspects of a rebar.
Material
As the name suggest, a stainless steel rebar is made from stainless steel alloy. Although, this was not always the case. Traditionally, rebars were of carbon steel; however, to prevent them from rusting and degrading, stainless metal rebars were introduced. Stainless metal contains chemical element chromium, which prevents corrosion as well as rusting, if the rebar is put into a corrosive environment. Besides, a steel rebar containing chromium is exceptionally stronger than carbon steel rebar, which makes it perfect for building large concrete structures. Furthermore, it is also ideal for locations that are prone to high corrosion levels and earthquakes.
Use
A reinforcing bar provides strength to reinforced concrete mixture. Reinforced concrete has an exceptional compression strength, although low tension strength. This imbalance means that the reinforced concrete structure will collapse when it is under high tension. Rebar is used to leverage this imbalance. When constructing the structure, this metal rod is embedded into place and then cement concrete is poured around it. Primarily due to this metal rod, builders today can create big, stable structures from cement concrete.
Physical Properties
Each rebar has ridges along its entire surface. Since the concrete will not adhere or bond to any metal, these ridges will help the rebar stay in place inside the concrete structure. Ridges usually create the resistance between the concrete and metal rod, helping the rod stay firm inside the concrete. The weight of concrete also facilitates the resistance against the rebar, helping it stay in place and adding stability to the structure. Besides, without these ridges, the rebar could be easily pulled out from the concrete.
Thermal Properties
Steel is the best metal to use with concrete since it has good thermal and conductive properties. Many metals expand or contract with the change in temperature. Carbon steel rebar is no different and will expand or contract with the change in external temperature. If this metal rod expands or contracts inside, it would crack or come apart from the concrete. Since steel has a good heat conductivity, this expansion and contraction could be prevented. This, in fact, is one of the major reasons why stainless steel rebars are used for constructions.
