POSCO E&C develops new rebar anchorage

By Yoon Ja-young

The earthquakes that shook Gyeongju and Gyeongsang Province drew attention to construction technology that enables stronger and safer buildings.

POSCO Engineering and Construction (E&C), which has been leading technological development in the industry, announced recently that it has completed a patent application for a new rebar anchorage that it developed, which enhances structural stability.

The “dual-type rebar anchorage” better affixes rebar that is inserted into ferroconcrete than present technologies, on top of enhancing the strength of the building.

Concrete has high compressive strength, but very little tensile strength. The rebar included in ferroconcrete makes up for the lack of tensile strength. The anchorage attached to the end of the rebar plays a key role in supplementing this.

Commonly used T-shaped anchorages sometimes can trigger side blow-outs, or the phenomenon in which the side of the concrete breaks. However, when adding more concrete to prevent a side blow-out, it ends up decreasing internal forces.

The newly developed dual-type rebar anchorage solves both of these problems, according to the company. It increases resistance to tensile load by combining two rebars and increasing the surface area of the anchorage at the same time, thereby decreasing the risks of side blow-out.

“Recent earthquakes rattled the whole country. I am very glad that the technology developed by POSCO will be used to enhance the structural stability of buildings,” said Kim In-ho, who was in charge of development of the new technology at POSCO E&C.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport recently announced revisions to the construction act that order the strengthening of earthquake-proof design of buildings. Korea is relatively safe from earthquakes, but many Koreans fear otherwise following the 5.8-magnitude tremor in Gyeongju last month as well as hundreds of aftershocks.