Why Mild Steel is most commonly used metal in Civil Engineering for Reinforced Concrete?
Even though there are lots of metals (like Aluminium, Cast iron ) available for reinforcing concrete, Mild Steel is the most widely used reinforcing material in reinforced concrete. Following are the major reasons behind this.

- It is highly ductile.
- The Young’s Modulus of mild steel is equal in both Tension and Compression. (2.0 – 2.1 x10^5 N/mm2)
- The coefficient of Thermal expansion of concrete and mild steel are almost equal, (12×10^-6 per deg C). This is the major reason why MS is proffered over Copper (16x 10^-6 per deg C) and Aluminium (23x 10^-6 per deg C) . Equal thermal coefficient will ensure the bond strength during thermal expansion, thus preventing bond failure.
- Moreover MS can be recycled easily.
- It can be easily welded.
- It is widely and cheaply available compared to other ductile metals.
- For MS. the yield stress is nearly equal to elastic stress and elastic limit curve is linear straight. Hence it is linear elastic material.
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