Current reinforced concrete design provisions do not allow the use of reinforcement above 70ksi. Recently, steel mills have been producing reinforcing bars that are well in excess of this limit, reaching 80, and even 100 ksi. Material tests have shown that these relatively new materials have excellent ductility characteristics that meet the demands of the reinforced concrete industry. This project aims at demonstrating the use of high-strength reinforcement in flexural members, possibly paving the way for an amendment of the design codes to account for these new materials. In this project, first the high strength reinforcement procured will be analyzed experimentally to determine the material characteristics and response, and an analytical model will be fitted to these data, in order to use high strength materials in non-linear cross-sectional analysis programs to predict flexural behavior of reinforced concrete structures. At the same time, a high-strength concrete mix will be investigated, in order to allow for the increased compression that the use of a high strength reinforcement will cause on a flexural member. Finally, full scale flexural specimens will be designed, fabricated, and tested, in order to validate the analytical study and to obtain data points to substantiate the case for the use of high strength reinforcement in reinforced concrete flexural members. This project will provide the scientific community with baseline information on which to found any further study employing high-strength reinforcement, including seismic applications (ductility-demanding) and bridge applications (corrosive environments).

Information about some of the facilities available and activities pursued (PDF 1.1 MB)