QUALITY CONTROL OF REBAR COUPLERS IN SPLICING OF REINFORCEMENT BARS

Abstract

The method of splicing reinforcement bars by rebar couplers is specially justified in the construction of bridges piers with big quantity of the reinforcement in the cross section. The rebar couplers were used for the splicing vertical reinforcement bars in the foundations and piers of the Moračica bridge, the most demanding structure on the section Smokovac-Mateševo of the highway across the Montenegro. The bridge has total length of 960 m and very high piers. During the process of construction and supervision works on the Moračica bridge one of the issues were the choice of adequate material and the control of quality in accordance with the relevant standards. In this paper attention is paid to presented different type of the couplers, the process of controlling the rebar couplers in the plant, the control of the installation of the rebar couplers at the site, as well as the results of the stress testing carried out in the laboratory.