Mechanical vs.

lap splicing
Lapping of reinforcing bars has long been considered an effective,
economical splicing method, but todays more demanding concrete
designs are forcing builders to consider alternatives
BY M.K. HURD

n almost all reinforced-concrete

I structures, some reinforcing bars

must be spliced. The required
length of a bar may be longer
than the stock length of steel, or
the bar may be too long to be
shipped conveniently. In either case,
rebar installers end up with two or
more pieces of steel that must be

All photos courtesy of Erico Inc.

spliced together.
Lap splicing, which requires the
overlapping of two parallel bars, has
long been accepted as an effective,
economical splicing method. Lap
splices usually are in contact, but in
flexural members the bars can be
separated by as much as 6 inches.
Bond between steel and concrete
transfers the load in one bar to the
concrete and then from the concrete
to the other (continuing) rebar. This
transfer of load is influenced by the
deformations, or ribs, on the rebar.
In projects with small bar sizes
such as #6 or #8, relatively low yield
stress in steel and building heights
of 15 stories or less, lap splices have
performed well over the long run. In
recent years, however, there has
been a shift. Continuing research,
more demanding designs in con-
crete, new materials and the devel-
opment of hybrid concrete/struc-
tural steel designs have forced
designers to consider alternatives to
lap splicing. Structural concrete
A sea of #18 rebar fills the base slab of this lock and dam being constructed near
Olmstead, Ill., by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Each bar is made up of five
pieces, ranging from 49 to 60 feet long, connected end to end using taper-
threaded mechanical splices. Using a specially designed bar driver powered by an
air drill, workers were able to simultaneously tighten couplers on all five bars at
once. Taper threads helped in alignment of the splices, with per-bar splice time re-
duced from five or six minutes to as little as two minutes. The Corps requires
these couplings to develop 90% of the bars ultimate strength81 ksi, a more
stringent requirement than the building code standard of 125% of yield strength
for mechanical splices.
building frames are being pushed to susceptible to splitting failures, rais-
100 stories and more. Current de- ing questions about the adequacy
sign practice for structural framing and reliability of lap splices.
uses bar sizes from #8 to #11 with
yields of 60 or 75 ksi. And concrete Code limits on lap splicing
strengths of 8000 to 12,000 psi are Research work on reinforcing steel
accepted by code and increasingly long ago convinced the American
used. Use of higher-strength con- Concrete Institute to prohibit lap
cretes allows for shorter lap lengths. splices for #14 and #18 bars because
However, these concretes are more bar forces are so large they can split
the concrete and destroy the effec-
tiveness of the lap splice. ACI 318-
95, Building Code Requirements for
Reinforced Concrete (Ref. 1), now
also forbids lap splices in tension tie
members (section 12.15.5) and in
plastic hinge regions (section
21.3.2).
The model code bodies (BOCA,
ICBO and SBCCI) adhere to the
same limitations. According to Ca-
gley and Apple (Ref. 2), these deci-
sions by responsible code bodies
bring into question the lap splice
principle, which calls for concrete to
transfer loads in tension and shear.
Concrete is notably poor in both of
these properties.
Alternatives to lap splicing
One alternative to lapping is to
splice bars by butting and welding,
following American Welding Society
procedures (ACI 318-95, section
12.14.3.2). Welding is generally
more expensive and is reliable only
when weldability of the rebar is en-
sured by supplementary specifica-
tions for the chemistry of the rebar
steel.
Bars also can be butt-spliced by a
variety of mechanical connections
(ACI 318-95, section 12.14.3). Most
of these connections are proprietary
and consist of a sleeve to align the
bars and hold them in position. For
tension connections and some com-
pression connections, the sleeve
transfers the tension or compression
Lap splices
Column
Beam reinforcing
reinforcing
Lap bar
Plan view
Mechanical butt splices help reduce rebar congestion and improve steel-to-concrete ra- the material costs. This cost savings
tios. By using mechanical splices in a beam-column intersection, the designer has the
option of using larger-diameter bars in a smaller column.
force directly from
one bar to another.
The connection of
sleeve to bar is
made by threading,
swaging or filling
the annular space
between the bar
and the sleeve with
a molten metal.
Building codes re-
quire mechanical
connections to
carry 125% of the
specified yield
strength of the bar.
Benefits of
mechanical
butt splices
Mechanical butt
splices offer
builders the follow-
ing
benefits.
Improved struc- Rebar couplers can be spun onto bars that cant be rotated,
tural integrity. Me- such as the hooked bars in this column.
chanical butt
splices maintain
load path continuity of the rein- elastic range.
forcement, independent of the con- Lap splices often infringe into the
dition or existence of the concrete. plastic hinge region, in violation of
Since these splices in tension regions code limitations. Mechanical splices
must develop 125% of the bars yield can more easily be located outside
strength, performance is assured well these high-stress regions.
into the strain-hardening region. In No reliance on concrete for load
seismic applications, mechanical transfer. In freeze-thaw and coastal
splices maintain structural integrity regions, rebar corrosion can produce
when bars are stressed into the in- concrete delamination and spalling.
Since lap splices transfer load
Mechanical splices through the surrounding concrete,
when the concrete is gone, the lap
Mechanical
coupler splice in effect has failed. Mech-
Beam Column anical splices do not rely on the con-
reinforcing reinforcing
crete for load transfer.
Elimination of lap-splice calcu-
lations. Mechanical splicing does
away with the tedious calculations
needed to determine proper lap
lengths and the potential calculation
errors.
Reduced material costs. Because
Plan view
mechanical splices do not overlap,
less rebar is used, reducing some of
can be particularly significant for
jobs requiring expensive epoxy-
coated bars, since building codes re-
quire up to 50% longer splice laps
for these bars than for standard
rebar.
Reduced rebar congestion. A
common complaint of concrete
placing crews is that they cant get
the concrete through rebar cages.
Laps effectively double the steel-to-
concrete ratio, and the resulting
congestion can restrict the flow and
distribution of larger aggregate parti-
cles and limit the effectiveness of vi-
bration. Although ACI 318-95 stipu-
lates a steel-to-concrete ratio less
than 8%, its difficult to follow this
regulation and achieve a balanced
design because of the extra rebar in
the lap zone. Mechanical butt splices
significantly reduce this congestion.
Cost considerations
Although the advantages of me-
chanical butt splices are well recog-
nized, a major concern has been
their high cost for applications
where the codes permit the use of
lap splices. But is the perception that
mechanical butt splices cost more
than lap splices a reality? And if so,
how much is the cost premium?
To answer these questions Cagley
and Associates, structural engineers,
recently studied two structures
under design in their Rockville, Md.,
office (Ref. 2). Each project required
approximately 10,000 cubic yards of
concrete, and both were designed
based on requirements of ACI 318-
95. One structure was a 12-story
Cost of threaded mechanical butt splices as a percent of total structure cost
Structure Cost
for lap
splice
Garage $139,653
(USED)
NIST Chemistry
Lab $155,719*
*Costs are based on a consensus of five rebar installation contractors.
Headed anchor replaces hook at end of rebar
The standard hooks required at
the ends of reinforcing bars often
produce steel congestion, making
concrete placement difficult. In
addition, space limitations may
prevent the use of larger rebar be-
cause there simply isnt enough
room for the long hook exten-
sions and large bend diameters
that codes require for these bars.
Mechanical anchors like the
taper-threaded anchor shown
here form heads for the rebar that
in many cases can replace the
standard hook, simplifying fabri-
cation, construction and concrete
placement (Ref. 3).
The anchor shown, manufac-
tured by Erico Inc., Solon, Ohio, is
like a mechanical coupler made
oversize to provide the necessary
anchorage. Designed for use on
ASTM A 615 Grade 60 or ASTM A
706 rebar in sizes #4 through
#18, the device does not require
specially trained installers.
parking garage in Harrisburg, Pa. The
other was a three-story chemistry lab
for the National Institute of Stan-
dards and Technology. Lap splices
were used on the parking garage,
and mechanical butt splices were
used for the NIST building because
Cost Extra Total
for butt cost project
splice of butt cost
splicing
$158,583* $18,930 $8,500,000
$221,092 $65,373 $52,000,000
(USED)
This taper-threaded anchor forms
a head at the end of rebar that can
replace the standard hook.
When future extension or con-
struction modifications are antic-
ipated, the anchor is threaded at
both ends, and one end is
plugged with a plastic thread
protector before concrete is
placed. The concrete can be
broken away later to expose the
anchor and splice in new bars
for the expansion.
lap splicing there would have
pushed the steel-concrete ratio
above the 8% code limit in the splice
zone. Since the NIST structures
beams did not require splicing, a
cost analysis was made only for col-
umn steel (see table).
Premium for Total
mechanical weight
splice as of laps,
percent of lbs
project cost
0.223 165,610
0.126 89,394
 To determine labor costs, five
rebar installation contractors were
questioned on comparative costs of
installing lap splices and mechanical
threaded butt splices. The consensus
was that the installation costs were
equal. Had the beams been consid-
ered (normally they have longer lap
lengths) lap-splice costs would have
been higher than reported in the
table. The results show that the costs
of upgrading a structure by using
mechanical butt splices are less than
0.2% of the total cost of the struc-
ture. Had it included beam splices,
the comparison would have been
even more favorable to the mechani-
cal splices.
The Cagley report concludes that
the added structural and economic
advantages of mechanical splices
over laps make the benefit-to-cost
ratio extremely attractive because
mechanical splices give the struc-
tures added toughness and load path
continuity that laps cannot offer.
The authors recommend additional
research on the performance of lap
splices with high-strength materials.
For more information on mechani-
cal splices from manufacturers, visit
the Buyers Guide area of the Con-
struction SuperNetwork
(www.askmac.com), and type rein-
forcement splices in the product
search field.
M.K. Hurd is an engineer and writer
specializing in concrete building
methods. She is a former editor of
Concrete Construction magazine
and author of Formwork for Con-
crete, published by the American
Concrete Institute.
References
1. ACI 318-95, Building Code Require-
ments for Reinforced Concrete, Amer-
ican Concrete Institute, Farmington
Hills, Mich., 1995.
2. James R. Cagley and Richard Apple,
Economic Analysis: Mechanical Butt
Splices vs. Lap Splicing in Reinforced
Concrete Construction, a study by Ca-
gley and Associates, Rockville, Md., for
Erico Inc., 1997.
3. John W. Wallace, Headed Rein-
forcement a Viable Option, Concrete
International, ACI, December 1997.
4. Russell S. Fling, Practical Design of
Reinforced Concrete, John Wiley &
Sons, New York, 1987.
Publication #C980683
Copyright 1998, The Aberdeen Group
All rights reserved