ABSTRACT
Concrete is a mixture of cement, sand, gravel, crushed rock, and water. Water reacts with cement in a chemical reaction known as hydration that sets the cement with other ingredients into a solid mass, high in compression strength. Concrete structures are composed of the beams, columns, or column–beam types of structures where they are subjected to flexure, compression, or the combination of flexure and compression. A concrete beam is a composite structure where a group of steel bars are embedded into the tension zone of the section to support the tensile component of the flexural stress. Steel bars are also used in the compression zone to give extra strength with a leaner concrete size, as in reinforced concrete columns and doubly reinforced beams. Slabs are the concrete floor systems supported by reinforced concrete beams, steel beams, concrete columns, steel columns, concrete walls, or masonry walls.
