Reinforced Concrete

Definition: Reinforced Concrete

Reinforced Concrete

Noun

1. Concrete with metal and/or mesh added to provide extra support against stresses.

Domain	Definitions
Building	Concrete strengthened with wire or metal bars. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Reinforced concrete is plain concrete in which steel rods or bars ("rebars") have been incorporated to reinforce the naturally brittle concrete. The use of reinforced concrete is a relatively recent invention, usually being considered as covering the last 150 years, and its accidental discovery is commonly ascribed to a Parisian gardener named Monier in about the year 1860. The major developments of reinforced concrete have taken place since the year 1900.

Tied Rebar

Plain concrete will carry extremely heavy compressive stresseses, but any appreciable tensile will cause rupture and consequent failure. For this reason, plain concrete cannot be used for any structural member subject to bending or direct tensile action. However, if steel bars are incorporated in such a way as to carry the tensile stresses, then reinforced concrete can be used in these roles.

There are two physical characteristics which are responsible for the success of reinforced concrete. Firstly, the coefficient of expansion of concrete is very nearly identical to that of steel, preventing internal stresses due to differential expansion or contraction. Secondly, when concrete hardens it grips the steel bars very firmly, permitting stress to be transmitted efficiently between both materials. Usually steel bars are roughened or corrugated to further improve the cohesion between the concrete and steel.

Although the ridges on rebar help, it's often crucial to "tie" the rebar, bending it so the bar can't pull out, and the bars reinforce each other in tension. Skillfully tied rebar forces the concrete into compression, where it has its greatest strength.

In some structural members where minimum cross-section is desired, steel may be used to carry some of the compressive load as well as tensile load. This occurrs in columns. Continuous beams in buildings generally require some compressive steel at the columns, but beams and slabs usually have reinforcing steel only on the tension side. In the case of continuous girders where the tensile stress alternates between top and bottom of the member, the steel is bent accordingly into a zig-zag shape within the beam.

The amount of steel required for adequate reinforcement is usually quite small, varying from 1% for most beams and slabs to 6% for some columns. The percentage is usually based on the area in a right cross section of the member. Reinforcing bars are round and vary by eighths of an inch from 0.25" to 1" in diameter.

All concrete must be cured, by exposing it to water, to reach its best strength. Reinforced concrete structures sometimes have provisions (such as ventilated hollow cores) to control their moisture.

Corrosion and frost damage reinforced concrete. When rebar rusts, it expands, cracking the concrete and unbonding the rebar from the concrete. Frost damage occurs when water penetrates the surface and freezes. The expansion of freezing water in microscopic cracks widens the cracks, causing flaking,a nd eventual structural failure.

In wet and freezing climates, many building codes for public works require epoxy-coated rebar, and concrete that has been painted or sealed to keep water out.

Penetrating sealants must be applied some time after curing, when the concrete has dried to at least several inches of depth. One especially exotic process is to surround the cured concrete member with a vacuum bag filled with resin monomer, and then after the monomer has penetrated several inches into the concrete, the monomer is cured with a gamma ray source. This produces a very hard, attractive surface that can be dyed through the material, so chips and scratches are less visible.

Less expensive sealants include paint, plastic foams, films and aluminum foil, felts or fabric mats sealed with tar, and layers of bentonite clay, sometimes used to seal roadbeds.

Synonym: Reinforced Concrete

Synonym: ferroconcrete (n). (additional references)

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Materials	Noun: material, raw material, stuff, stock, staple; adobe, brown stone; chinking; clapboard; daubing; puncheon; shake; shingle, bricks and mortar; metal; stone; clay, brick crockery; compo, composition; concrete; reinforced concrete, cement; wood, ore, timber.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

Domain	Title
Books	Design of Reinforced Concrete Structure (reference) Eloquent Concrete: How Rudolph Steiner Employed Reinforced Concrete (reference) Fibre Reinforced Plastics for Reinforced Concrete Structures (reference) (more book examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Thumbnail	Description & Credit	Thumbnail	Description & Credit
	Detail view of tops of upstream arch barrels. Photograph by Jack E. Boucher, Summer 1971. (Reproduction Number: HAER, UTAH,18-SALCI,22-5) The development of the multiple-arch reinforced concrete dam by engineer John S. Eastwood took advantage of the inherent characteristics of an ancient building form to greatly reduce the needed mass of dams. Inclined, reinforced concrete barrel vaults transfer the weight of the impounded water to the ground through a series of buttresses. The downward pressure actually increases the stability of the dam by pressing it against its foundation, making it an ideal design for poor foundation conditions. Eastwood built similar dams throughout the world.Credit: Library of Congress.		Exterior close-up of tower from north. Photograph by Jack E. Boucher, August 1969. (Reproduction Number: HABS WIS,51-RACI,5-6) The great American architect Frank Lloyd Wright made national headlines in 1936 with his designs for the Pennsylvania house known as Fallingwater and this building, the Johnson Wax Corporation Building in Racine, Wisconsin. Using reinforced concrete, brick, and innovative glass tubing, Wright created one of his most distinctive commercial designs for Johnson Wax. The eight-story research tower shown here was completed in 1947 to complement the original building. Each floor of the tower is cantilevered out from a central cylindrical core. The exterior walls are made of layers of curved glass tubing and brick.Credit: Library of Congress.
	Anti-tank barrier, made of reinforced concrete posts & heavy cables, front of German lines, Bet Etain & Verdun.Credit: Library of Congress.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Subject	Topic	Quote
Business		Even now, nearly all construction is with reinforced concrete columns and slabs. (references)
		This is particularly true in applications of concrete, reinforced concrete, and pre-stressed concrete structures. (references)
		Residential high rise construction is even more heavily dominated by traditional methods using reinforced concrete, with brick and cement block exteriors. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Language		Translations for "reinforced concrete"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Bulgarian		железобетон (ferro concrete, ferroconcrete). (various references)

Czech		železobeton (ferro concrete, ferroconcrete). (various references)

Danish		underfoering i jernbeton funderet paa paelevaeg (secant piled reinforced concrete bridge), kontinuerligt armeret beton (continually reinforced concrete, continuously reinforced concrete), glasbeton (glassfibre reinforced concreting, reinforced concrete glass), den saakaldte betonkappemetode er en metode til i vandet at praefabrikere bygvaerker i armeret beton (in the shuttered concrete process, reinforced concrete strutures are prefabricated in the water). (various references)

Dutch		op een gecombineerde boorpalenprefabpalenwand gefundeerde gewapend-betonnen brug (secant piled reinforced concrete bridge), glasbeton (glassfibre reinforced concreting, reinforced concrete glass), doorlopend gewapend beton (continually reinforced concrete, continuously reinforced concrete), de z.g.bekist beton-methode is een methode waarmee werken van gewapend beton onder water worden geprefabriceerd (in the shuttered concrete process, reinforced concrete strutures are prefabricated in the water), continu gewapend beton (continually reinforced concrete, continuously reinforced concrete). (various references)

Finnish		rautabetoni (ferro-concrete), teräsbetoni. (various references)

French		passage inferieur en beton arme fonde sur pieux secants (secant piled reinforced concrete bridge), le procédé dit du "béton mantelé" est un procédé de préfabrication dans l'eau d'ouvrages en béton armé, beton arme sans joints (continually reinforced concrete, continuously reinforced concrete), beton arme continu (continually reinforced concrete, continuously reinforced concrete), beton a armature continue (continually reinforced concrete, continuously reinforced concrete), béton translucide (glassfibre reinforced concreting, reinforced concrete glass). (various references)

German		stahlbeton (ferroconcrete). (various references)

Greek		μπετό αρμέ (ferroconcrete), ενισχυμένο σκυρόδερμα. (various references)

Hungarian		vasbeton (ferro concrete). (various references)

Indonesian		beton bertulang. (various references)

Italian		cemento armato. (various references)

Japanese Kanji		鉄筋コンクリート (iron reinforced concrete). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		てっき�"コンクリート (iron reinforced concrete). (various references)

Pig Latin		einforcedray oncretecay

Portuguese		cimento armado, betão armado (ferro concrete). (various references)

Romanian		beton armat (armored-concrete, armoured-concrete, ferro concrete). (various references)

Russian		железобетон (armoured concrete, ferroconcrete). (various references)

Spanish		hormigón armado. (various references)

Turkish		betonarme (ferro concrete, iron concrete). (various references)

Vietnamese		bê tông cốt sắt (ferro-concrete). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "c-c-c-d-e-e-e-e-f-i-n-n-o-o-r-r-r-t"
	-5 letters: ferroconcrete, reconnoitered.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.

Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)

52 65 69 6E 66 6F 72 63 65 64 43 6F 6E 63 72 65 74 65

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)

Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)

01010010 01100101 01101001 01101110 01100110 01101111 01110010 01100011 01100101 01100100 00100000 01000011 01101111 01101110 01100011 01110010 01100101 01110100 01100101

HTML Code (1990) (references)

&#82 &#101 &#105 &#110 &#102 &#111 &#114 &#99 &#101 &#100 &#32 &#67 &#111 &#110 &#99 &#114 &#101 &#116 &#101

ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)

0052 0065 0069 006E 0066 006F 0072 0063 0065 0064 0043 006F 006E 0063 0072 0065 0074 0065

Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)

Expression	Frequency per Day
reinforced concrete	39
reinforced concrete pipe	32
reinforced concrete design	19
fiber reinforced concrete	12
reinforced concrete design software	3
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Reinforced Concrete

Definition: Reinforced Concrete