Reinforced concrete: steel is embedded in concrete in such a way that the two materials combinedly act together in resisting forces.

The reinforcing steel could be in the form of rods, bars or mesh and absorbs the tensile, shear, and sometimes the compressive stresses in a concrete structure.

In 19th century the invention of concrete took the construction industry by storm it changed the way we built our urban jungles and in no time, it became one of the world’s most common building materials.

But this concrete had its own shortcomings, it couldn’t easily withstand tensile and shear stresses caused by wind, earthquakes, vibrations and is therefore unsuitable in most of structural applications.

Then the reinforced concrete came into picture, in reinforced concrete, the tensile strength of steel and the compressive strength of concrete work together to allow the member to sustain these stresses over considerable spans.

The above figure illustrates the failure of plain concrete beam.