Investigation of Mechanical Properties of Ribbed Reinforcement Steel Bars: A Case Study on Ethiopian Construction Industry

Abstract

This paper presents the annual report of the mechanical properties of ribbed reinforcement bars from construction sites taking projects as the case in and around Amhara, Ethiopia. Both imported and locally produced re-bars are used in the analysis without consideration of their varieties in the quality of the two sources. This paper focused on only with reinforcement bars of diameter 8, 10, 12 and 16 mm that accounted for 67% of the total tests. Using Universal Testing Machine, strength properties such as ultimate tensile strength (UTS), yield strength (YS), percentage elongation at fracture (%) and linear mass density property (kg/m) of steel reinforcing bars were analyzed for rebar diameters of 10, 12, 8 and 16 mm. Moreover, the results were analyzed by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results showed that the mean values of YS and UTS of all diameters surpassed the standard values recommended limit set by BS449: 1997 and ASTMA706. In addition, the mean values of percentage elongations for all tested steel products surpassed the 12% limit recommended by BS 449, 10% by ASTM A706 for all diameters. However, the mean mass per length values for 8, 10, 12 and 16 mm were below standard values set by ASTM A615/A615M. Furthermore, ANOVA indicated that the reinforced bars appeared to be dissimilar in terms of UTS and YS with 95% confidence, but the reinforced bars were similar to the elongation percentage.