Safety and infrastructure experts have stressed on the need of using corrosion resistant stainless steel reinforcing bar (stainless steel rebar) for rebuilding and restoration of infrastructure projects, specially Kedarnath Temple, to inject more than hundred years life in concrete structures in the battered Uttarakhand State.
Since numerous countries are experiencing natural disasters and decaying concrete infrastructure. This often necessitates the costly repair or replacement of important structures -- some of them after only a relatively short lifetime. Faced with these problems, governing authorities worldwide are emphasising on life cycle costs for new construction projects especially in hill areas where natural calamites strike on regular intervals.
Experts said that the stainless steel reinforcing bars provide long life into concrete structures especially in the hills, coastal areas, ports, airports, bridges, high-rise buildings and water treatment plants as these bars do not ever corrode and thus concrete failure due to spalling is avoided. Stainless steel reinforcing bars are although more expensive than carbon steel but it can be used selectively in failure prone zones only thus increasing the project cost marginally and at the same time we can get over 100 years maintenance free life which means lots of savings by reducing the ongoing repair and maintenance costs of structures like bridges, coastal area projects, water treatment plants, high rise buildings and highways.
"Currently a Buddhist temple being built in hill area in Thailand and Shri Swami Narayan Temple in Kolkata are using stainless steel rebar for non-maintenance above 1,000 years of life of the temples," claimed, YPS Suri, India head, Outokumpu India, a division Finland-based largest stainless steel maker in the world which was first company in the country to introduce stainless steel rebar.
According to him, growing popularity of use of stainless steel in infrastructure can been gauged from the fact that Outokumpu India has recently bagged an order for more than 200 tonne of stainless steel rebar from Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) for it's upcoming Swaminarayan temple project in Kolakata. Suri said that similarly use of stainless steel rebar is becoming mandatory in construction of bridges as it escalates the cost of the project by 1 per cent only that is covered up by non-maintenance for decades. More over duplex stainless steel can readily be used with conventional carbon steel reinforcement in concrete without causing galvanic effects. "Stainless steel can be cost-effective when used in the elements of the structure at the highest risk to corrosion or, where repair is difficult and expensive," he added.