10 Things that Reinforcement Detailers wish that Junior Engineers knew

1. Rational Behaviour
In order to convince yourself that your RC frame design is sufficient, you may well have analysed 20
downstand beams. However, it is not in anybody’s interest to take these 20 different beam sections
all the way to site. Clever selection of say 5 sections will lead to simpler GAs for the technician,
reduced scheduling for the detailer, more uniform headroom for the architect, standardised routing
for the MEP designer, and faster construction on site.

Rationalisation is also something we can ‘sell’ to the client.

2. The Thick of it
Of course rebar and section thickness work in tandem; and clients and architects often want thin
slabs to give them another storey, or greater headroom. But in your eagerness to impress
everybody in that initial design meeting, have you inadvertently thrown the detailer a ‘hospital
pass’? See below;

Theoretical World
Top Cover 30
T1 12
T2 12
Hook Outer Diameter 75
B2 12
B1 16
Bottom Cover 30
Total 187 mm (promise 200 mm slab in the meeting, and pat self on back)

Real World
Top Cover 30
T1 14 (Actual diameter of 12mm bar, ribs included)
T2 14
Hook Outer Diameter 75
B2 14
B1 19 (Actual diameter of 16mm bar, ribs included)
Bottom Cover 30
‘Closed’ detailing tolerance 10 (Standard Method of Detailing Structural Concrete, para 5.3)
Total 206mm (!)

3. Lap Count
The transmission of tensile stress between two reinforcement bars used to require the memorable
distance of 40D (in 30 N/mm2 concrete having ‘good’ bond conditions). Eurocodes have made this
considerably more complex. However, help is at hand. WSP has a spreadsheet that can assist:
‘EC\2\01 Anchorage and Lap’

Slip – forming of a concrete core will require lap lengths well in excess of 40D.
4. Reading Material
The Standard Method of Detailing Structural Concrete written by IStructE and the Concrete Society is
a very useful, and readable document. It contains enough diagrams, drawings and sketches to make
the content understandable to even, non-detailers.
5. Slab Details
Slabs often make up the lion share of detailing effort, and fixing time on site. Chasing the minimum
reinforcement weight may well produce a slab that takes months to fix:

Better to specify a standard top mat, standard bottom mat, and then merely show additional bar
where required.
If you are chasing minimum reinforcement weight, speak to your contractor early on. Would they be
happy to agree (in writing) to fitting bars at 135mm centres (instead of a rounded 125mm)? That
way you can closely tune your Asprov to your Asreq, and save a tonne(s) of rebar in the process.

6. Congestion
Can the top cover of pile caps be increased so that ground beam top steel can fly straight through?

Tapered thread splicing systems aka ‘couplers’ produced by manufacturers such as ‘Lenton’, can
make the problem of troublesome laps go away; at a price!

Having just about managed to figure out how you can intersect two ground beams into a pile cap.
Can you now fit a column holding down ‘bolt box’ into the remaining space?

Speak to your friendly detailer as early as possible. They have designed far more RC frames than you
have, and will provide you with a wealth of experience.
7. Punching Shear
In congested areas, such as a slab - column connections, shear rails are a very simple method of
reducing fixing complexity. They are also simple to specify.

8. Slab Openings
Just as you come close to a finalised slab design, those feisty MEP engineers will begin peppering it
with service holes. If your span design can stand it, why not opt for a standard sub-500mm opening
detail. And that way you won’t be revising the reinforcement details every other day!
9. Space
Congestion doesn’t just occur at the interface between two structural elements. Sometimes we
even manage to design in ‘congestion’ mid-member; a fault entirely of our own making. TEDDS and
other analysis programmes are very good at making it look like all the steel will fit.

But when you’re detailing B40 bars at 100mm centres, alarm bells should ring. B40 bars are actually
46mm in diameter, and so at the lapping point you will have created an effective steel plate.

Also remember that shear links cannot sit in the same plane. So these 5 x 12mm shear legs might
require 3 separate links, all stacked against each other. That’s a 42mm band, every 200 c/c.

Any gaps less than 25mm wide start to become effective aggregate sieves, as in the photos below.
Some projects specify that all bars at B32 or thicker can only be coupled, rather than lapped, to
reduce these woes. This beam had to be ‘unpicked’ at astronomic cost.

10. And Finally…

The Reinforcement Detailers at the CRC provide very competitive fee estimates, with a mere 1.0 x
multiplier, to assist you and your competitive bid. They have no ’float’ for re-design. If you’ve
designed a ‘snake’s wedding’ and they cannot make it fit, they may ask for additional fee. Be kind!

Kevin Clarke, Head of RC Detailing and Charlie Statham, Chartered Structural Engineer