Plain Round Bar (PRB) For Shear Links?

[psychedomination]

Hi there,

I'm working on a small residential project, where I specced a beam with T8 shear links at 9" centres. I arrived at the site to review the progress and I saw that the contractor used T8 steel reinforcement but they used PRB (for around 20% of the length, which happens to be over a continuous support in one location) and not the typical deformed/ribbed rebar.

It's my first time seeing this type of bar. Is this type of bar suitable to use as shear links?

A few thoughts running through my mind would be that deformed would be better in most situations as main tensile steel, as I'm assuming the development length would be less than PRB and the interlock would be greater due to the grip from the ribs. However, does this have a large impact on shear links/stirrups?

The contractor stated that the rebar supplier sold them this when they asked for T8s. I'm unsure what the yield strength is. Is there a typical yield strength for PRB or does it match deformed/ribbed?

 

[Greenalleycat]

I'm in a highly seismic country (i.e. stirrups way more critical than in gravity only construction) and stirrups are 99% of the time round
Round bars have tighter turn radii which is hugely beneficial for construction
Shear reinforcement doesn't rely on the ribs for anchorage, it relies on the bends that are anchored around longitudinal reo
Here, there are the same strength grades available - 300MPa or 500MPa - for both round and deformed bar
However, you should be careful to check the grade - default here is that stirrups are 300MPa but main longitudinal reo is 500MPa
So, if you require high-strength stuff for your design you cannot assume de facto that they have supplied the correct grade

 

[Lomarandil]

Similar, I'm fine with round bar stirrupa but it was most commonly 295MPa instead of 395MPa