The Importance of Welded Wire Fabric

In numerous construction processes, welded wire fabric is used as reinforcement to add to the strength of slabs and ensure a stronger, more stable overall construction.

There are a variety of advantages associated with the use of welded wire fabric or reinforcing bars in a slab on grade in Indiana. Here are just a few examples of these primary advantages:

• Crack control: By adding welded wire fabric reinforcement within a slab, it will prevent cracks from forming and opening up farther. The cracks can be a result of shrinkage during the drying process, or due to heavy loads that are externally applied. But by keeping cracks tight or preventing them from opening at all, you will not have to worry about faulting or failure of the slab due to cracking. This is one of the most important benefits of the use of welded wire fabric.
• Curling restraint: By reinforcing the upper half of the concrete slab, you can restrict concrete shrinkage that might otherwise occur. By restraining shrinkage in that upper slab, curling will be reduced. The closer you place the steel to the top of the slab and the more area the steel covers, the more curling will be restrained and reduced.
• Greater structural strength after cracking: If overloading occurs on the slab to the point that it starts to crack, the reinforcing steel fabric will provide extra strength even when those structural cracks form, giving extra capacity and preventing total failure of the slab.
• Allowance of increased joint spacing: The spacing of construction and control joints can get wider when you use reinforcement methods like welded wire fabric. The increase in spacing could be small, or it could be rather significant, depending on the way you’ve designed the system and on the intended slab performance.
• Greater impact resistance: Numerous studies have shown that the use of welded wire fabric and other forms of steel reinforcement in concrete slabs increases a slab’s impact resistance. Reinforcement cuts down on the strains that would otherwise be caused by the impact, preventing premature cracking and improving the structural strength in the slab even if cracking does occur.
• Reduced maintenance: Welded wire fabric cuts down on the amount of slab and joint maintenance you’ll need to perform to keep it in good condition. This is because it also cuts down on curling and better maintains cracks, as previously discussed, which removes some of the maintenance tasks and inspections you’d have to perform.
• Allows use of shrinkage compensating concrete: Shrinkage compensating concrete has a variety of benefits of its own, but it cannot be used without reinforcing steel. This means welded wire fabric opens up additional possibilities for you with regard to the types of concrete applications you can use.

These are just a few examples of some of the biggest benefits associated with the use of welded wire fabric in Indiana. For more information about the various services provided by Benchmark Fabricated Steel, we encourage you to contact our team today. We look forward to answering your questions.

Categorised in: Welded Wire Fabric

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