• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.275-283
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• 2012

Steel Plate for Rebar Connection was recently developed to splice rebars in delayed slab-wall joints in high-rise building, slurry wall-slab joints, temporary openings, etc. It consists of several couplers and a thin steel plate with shear key. Cyclic loading tests on slab-wall joints were conducted to verify structural behavior of the joints having Steel Plate for Rebar Connection. For comparison, joints with Rebend Connection and without splices were also tested. The joints with Steel Plate for Rebar Connection showed typical flexural behavior in the sequence of tension re-bar yielding, sufficient flexural deformation, crushing of compression concrete, and compression rebar buckling. However, the joints with Rebend Connection had more bond cracks in slabs faces and spalling in side cover-concrete, even though elastic behavior of the joints was similar to that of the joints with Steel Plate for Re-bar Connection. Consequently, the joints with Rebend Connection had less strengths and deformation capacities than the joints with Steel Plate for Re-bar Connection. In addition, stiffness of the joints with Rebend Connection degraded more rapidly than the other joints as cyclic loads were applied. This may be caused by low elastic modulus of re-straightened rebars and restraightening of kinked bar. For two types of diameters (13mm and 16mm) and two types of grades (SD300 and SD400) of rebars, the joints with Steel Plate for Rebar Connection had higher strength than nominal strength calculated from actual material properties. On the contrary, strengths of the joints with Rebend Connection decreased as bar diameter increased and as grade becames higher. Therefore, Rebend Connection should be used with caution in design and construction.