the.com/rebar
the skeleton that lets concrete punch above its weight class
means Rebar is the steel bar or rod embedded inside concrete to reinforce it, giving the brittle stone-like material the tensile strength to resist being pulled apart or cracking.
from A plain workaday shortening of "reinforcing bar" — "re-" meaning again or back, plus "reinforce" itself from the Old French "renforcier," to strengthen anew. The clipped form "rebar" rose with the 20th-century construction trade, a name as no-nonsense as the steel it describes.
- team effort
- concrete resists crushing, rebar resists pulling apart
- ribbed design
- surface ridges grip concrete so it won't slip
- sneaky match
- both expand at nearly identical rates with heat
- recycled past
- most rebar is melted-down scrap steel reborn
- rust trap
- corroding rebar swells and cracks concrete from within
hoover dam — contains 582 miles of rebar reinforcing its massive concrete structure, completed 1936
golden gate bridge — uses rebar extensively in its concrete anchorages and approach viaducts in san francisco
burj khalifa — reinforced with rebar throughout its 828-meter concrete and steel structure in dubai