Steel bars are used in many of the buildings and infrastructures encountered in our daily life, houses, offices, supermarkets, bridges, ports, just to name a few. Our safety depends a lot on the quality and strength of these steel bars buried inside the concrete. We often take for granted that materials produced from steel mills are able to achieve standards and strengths.
Based on my ten years research, there were steel mills who produced inferior and sub-standard steel bars. Every structural engineer must understand the importance of quality control and supervision.
This is the steel bar sample used for tensile testing and it broke after applying great force. The force will allow you to know the yield strength and breaking strength. By examining and measuring the elongation of the final shape will enable you to know whether the steel is brittle or ductile. Structural Engineer does not like to use brittle steel because sudden failure for a reinforced concrete structure is fatal. Ductile failure allows cracks and noises to form in the structures, which are warning signs and you will have time to escape!
Run, if you notice these phenomena in any building.
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