Strength is a quality that is attributed to all materials. They are either categorized as strong or weak. But, there is much more to it than that. A lot of materials are strong in some cases but weak in others. There is a lot of mixing and matching involved. When you think about concrete, you automatically term it as strong. But concrete needs to be reinforced to be called strong.
Concrete can be very strong when it comes to absorbing stress in the form of compression. However, it does not fare well against tensile strength and crumbles when up
against forces that threaten to pull it apart. Concrete always experiences both kinds of stress in construction and if you put weight on the concrete beam from the top, it will hold up but deforms when it experiences tensile stress.
Rebar is added to concrete which is known as reinforced concrete. Rebar is very good at taking tensile stress and this is the reason it is used to make reinforced concrete. Adding rebar to concrete makes its strength more all-around. It also decreases the speed at which failure occurs. This gives the engineers time to spot a problem before it gets out of hand.
You can watch the video below to learn more details.
