Quality of Steel bars on the Ugandan Market

Abstract

This report details the research on assessing the quality of a number of iron bars on the Ugandan market. The research was experimental in design. Uganda is rapidly growing with an increased demand for more infrastructure. To meet the demand, buildings are being set up in very short times. This has brought about an insidious effect of the sudden collapse of buildings. The sudden collapse of buildings has been owed to, among, many reasons, the use of poor quality of materials. One of the most commonly used materials are the steel bars. To aid into investigations into what the cause of these sudden collapses could be, the quality of the steel bars on the market was examined by looking into their properties. Ribbed steel bars of seven different sizes from three of the top manufacturers will be evaluated. The tensile behavior, bending behavior and chemical composition were tested using the Universal Testing machine and from the spark emission spectrometer respectively. The results were analyzed and compared to the FDEAS 412-2, ASTM 615M and BS4449 2005 standards. The steel bars tested met the standards for the chemical and bending tests. 66.7 % of the selected steel bars mechanical properties were up to the standards. The properties combined were just beating the bare minimum of the standard set values. The steel bars had very inconsistent compositions of the alloying elements which adversely affected the mechanical properties. The negligence of quality control during production could account for the inconsistent chemical and mechanical properties exhibited by the steel bars on market.