REINFORCED CONCRETE DETAILING

This lecture is not concerned with stress analysis and the design of reinforced concrete, but with the clear and concise presentation of its details in drawings. In view of the complexity of reinforced concrete structures and the very wide range of bar shapes that can arise, it is essential that presentation is standardised. Standardisation is required both in drawings and in the bar bending schedules needed for ordering the reinforcement, and for the identification of steel on site. For any reinforced concrete structure, the draughtsman must provide: a) a dimensional layout (General Arrangement) which gives all the dimensions required to form the structure ; cross references must be made on this drawing to the concrete specifications for the structure, a reinforced concrete detailed drawing (RC Drawing), a bar bending schedule.

b) c)

The preparation of dimensional layouts for a structure is straight forward and needs no special treatment. It should however be emphasised that all information necessary for the construction of the structure, other than details of the reinforcement, must be provided on this drawing. Preparation of reinforced concrete detailed drawings should be in accordance with the publication Standard Methods of Detailing Reinforced Concrete. The scheduling of reinforcement should be in accordance with BS 4466: 1989. Reinforcement is available in several forms and the type used must be noted on the drawing. The forms available are: a) b) c) d) Hot rolled mild steel bars to BS 4449 Hot rolled high yield bars to BS 4449 Cold worked steel bars to BS 4461 Steel fabric for the reinforcement of concrete to BS 4453.

Mild steel bars are available as either plain of deformed. Deformed bars form a better bond with the concrete. Hot rolled high yield bars are only available as deformed bars and cold worked steel bars are square, twisted, high yield bars. Reinforcing steel is available in the following sizes: 6,8,10,12,16,20,25,32, and 40mm. Fifty millimetre bars are also available. Actual sizes of deformed or twisted bars are greater than the nominal bar diameter by up to 13% and this must be taken into account in the case of heavily reinforced sections.

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On RC drawings, mild steel bars are differentiated from high yield bars as: R12 or M12 - 12 mm  mild steel bar Y20 or T20 - 20 mm  high yield bar. The design of reinforcement should be in accordance with BS8110. It covers provisions for minimum areas of steel, rules for curtailment of steel beyond the area in which it is required and other factors governing design. The reinforcement in Fig. 1 has been designed in accordance with the provisions of this code. Some points to note are: a) b) c) Reinforcement has been curtailed in areas of reduced bending moment. With the greatly improved bond of deformed bars, hooks should only be used where it is necessary to hook one set of bars around another. Distribution bar has been provided in the direction normal to the main bar. This allows the slab to redistribute stresses laterally, to resist thermal stresses. It also enables the steel fixer to maintain the design spacing. The upstand at the left-hand end has been reinforced with rectangular stirrups which also support the main reinforcement. Dowels have been provided to prevent the slab moving on the front supporting wall due to thermal creep or vibration. (Other methods, such as keyways in the top of the wall would do as well.) No reinforcement is placed within 40mm of the surface of the concrete, this is known as the cover. Bar at the bottom of the slab is laid on small concrete blocks 40mm thick and about 40mm square. Top bar is carried on chairs to shape code 83 of BS 4466. All main reinforcement is carried past the point where it is no longer required to carry tensile loads.

d) e)

f)

g)

Figure 2 shows the reinforcement for a simple wharf slab, detailed in accordance with the Standard Methods of Detailing Reinforced Concrete. The necessary information will appear on two separate drawings. Figure 1 shows the arrangement of the reinforcement. Notice here that no slab dimensions are given; only one bar of each type is shown fully; bars in the top and the quantity of each bar is shown once only. Figure 3 shows a portion of a bar schedule which would be completely by the draughtsman in accordance with the reinforcement design and the 'Shape Code' of the preferred shapes, measurement, specification and length calculation as described in BS 4466 (Figure 4). The bar schedule is very important and is complete in itself in order that the contractor can send it to his own yard for the steel to be ordered and bent, without reference to any other drawing. The steel fixers tie each intersection with soft iron wire. This is one good reason for using the largest bars possible to reduce the number and thus the time and cost of fixing them.

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The example shown in Figure 1 shows a simple cantilevered loading wharf for lorries. The reinforcing bars of circular section mild steel, theoretically necessary to carry the tensile forces in the slab, are shown as heavy lines on the general section (a). A practical layout of the reinforcement is shown in section (e) and by means of half plans (d). The conventions used in the RC drawing are as follows. a) Reinforcement is shown by single, thick, out of scale lines that stand out clearly from all other detail. End views of bars can be made even more out of scale if necessary to show them more clearly. Slab dimensions are not shown in views which detail reinforcement. Location dimensions for the ends of bars are restricted to the section where possible. Conventional concrete shading is not used on the section. (A light pencil shading on sections, applied to the back of tracings, makes sections stand out on prints.) No attempt is made in the section to separate bars in the same horizontal plane. The first bar in a series is shown whole in plan and a short bit of the last one, but no others. A thin line at right angle to the bars with an arrowhead to the whole bar and the fragment carries a reference, for which the preferred form is: 20R8-63150(T), which means: 20 bars of round mild steel (R), 8mm diameter, bar mark 63 at 150 mm centres in the Top of the slab. The number of bars in each group should be given on the drawing only once, to avoid confusion when totalling on the schedule.

b) c) d) e) f)

In the section, a bar mark is written parallel to the main reinforcing bars if there is no ambiguity, otherwise an arrow is used to connect the reference uniquely to the bar. The references for longitudinal bars are written normal to the slab, if possible, close to the actual bar or indicated by arrows if necessary. The bar mark is the unique reference of a bar within the job. On small jobs, the types of bar can be numbered form mark 1 onwards. On larger projects, bars can be numbered sequentially for each structure, e.g., bars for a sluice are marked S1 onwards, while bars for a bridge are marked B1 onwards. Bars can also be scheduled for each drawing, so long as each bar in the whole job has a unique reference. This is usually done by including the drawing number in the reference. It is not normally recommended that bars be shown by broken lines. It is preferable to use full lines for all bars detailed on the drawing, broken lines are for bars detailed on another drawing.

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