[TowerTalk] Pre-rebared concrete

[Hakan Linderhed]

Hi

While pouring the base for my new tower yesterday, the concrete
truck driver told me about a new type of "pre-rebared concrete"
that he said is going to revolutionize the concrete industry.
Instead of using the normal steel bars, they mix lots of small
pieces of steel wire with the concrete, which supposedly should
do the same job as the traditional bars.
He showed me one "mini-bar". It was about 7 cm (3") long and
about 1 mm (0.04") in diameter.

Has anyone any experience from this type of concrete? Does it mean
we don't have to mess with unwieldy rebar cages any more?

Intuitively the idea seems pretty sound and I guess you could say
that the concrete is reinforced at a "lower level" than when using
large sized bars. But will this type of concrete hold up for 
demanding structural applications?

The driver also mentioned that he brought some of this concrete home
(a fringe benefit in his profession ;-) to do some stairs at his house,
and (no surprise...) discovered that all superficial wires in the concrete
rusted in a very short time. Since the wire bits are not connected to any
other wires, this is probably more of an aestetical than a structural issue.

Can someone in the "concrete business" enlighten us?

73, Hawk SM5JBM (SM5G)




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