BAR BENDING SCHEDULE - ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW

BAR BENDING SCHEDULE – ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW

Bar bending schedule or schedule of bars is a tabular representation of a reinforcement bar. It is generally represented for each type of R.C.C work. With the help of a bar bending schedule, the requirement of different lengths and sizes of bars may be known and can be arranged and bent up during the time of construction.

Bar bending schedule generally describes the particulars of bars, shape of bending with sketches and total length and weight of the bars along with their numbers.

Bar bending schedule is generally prepared while estimating a R.C.C work or structure.

Prepare Bar Bending Schedule

Generally reinforced cement concrete works may be calculated under 2 items :

1. Concrete work including centering and shuttering.
2. Steel reinforcement along with its bending, cutting, laying etc in Quintal or Tonnes.

The quantity of steel is very small in volume hence no deduction is made for the steel from the volume of concrete.

Steel reinforcement is calculate as per actual requirement including overlap, hooks, cranks etc and is determined from detailed drawing. Generally the percentage of steel reinforcement depends on the design of structure. nu7

For lintel, slab etc	0.7 % to 1 %
Beam	1 % to 2 %
Column	1 % to 5 %
Footing	0.5 % to 0.8 %

Common mistake happens during preparing of Bar Bending Schedule

Miscounting of the Number of reinforcement Bars.
Calculating the length of reinforcement bar incorrectly
Considering incorrect cover in Beam, Slab, Column, and footings.
Incorrect counting of bends in reinforcement Bar.

Tips for Preparing Bar Bending Schedule

Prepare different Bar Bending Schedule for Different RCC elements (i.e. Divide the table into different parts such as Footing, pedestal, Beam, Column, Slab, etc) to avoid mistakes.
Always keep the unit weight of bars Handy. It helps you prepare Bar Bending Schedule.
Keep thumb rules in mind or handy, that always helps you in cross-checking your Calculation.
Such as,
Approximate quantity of reinforcement steel for small structure varies from 3 to 4 Kg/Sqft of Built-up area.
·Total Volume of Reinforcement steel for the slab is roughly 1.5% to 2% of the volume of Concrete. (Volume of Steel Reinforcement can be calculated as by dividing the weight by density of steel, that is 7850 Kg/M3)

Advantages of Bar Bending Schedule (BBS)

When Bar bending schedule is available, cutting and bending of reinforcement can be done at the factory and transported to the site. This increases faster execution at the site and reduces construction time and cost due to less requirement of workers for bar bending. Bar bending also avoids the wastage of steel reinforcement (5 to 10%) and thus saves project costs.
Using a bar bending schedule when used for Fe500, saves 10% more steel reinforcement compared to fe415.
It improves the quality control at the site as reinforcement is provided as per bar bending schedule which is prepared using the provisions of respective detailing standard codes.
It provides a better estimation of reinforcement steel requirement for each and every structural member which can be used to compute overall reinforcement requirement for the entire project.
It provides better stock management for reinforcement. Steel requirement for the next phase of construction can be estimated with accuracy and procurement can be done. This prevents the stocking of extra steel reinforcement at the site for a longer time, preventing corrosion of reinforcement in the case of coastal areas. It also prevents a shortage of reinforcement for ongoing work by accurate estimation and thus concrete construction works can proceed smoothly.
The quantity of reinforcement to be used is calculated using engineering formulas and standard codes, so there is no option for approximate estimation of steel reinforcement.
With the use of bar bending schedule, mechanization of cutting and bending of reinforcement can be done, again reducing the cost and time of project and dependency on skilled labor requirement. It also improves the reliability of the accuracy of bar cutting and bending.

Bar bending schedule is very much useful during auditing of reinforcement and provides checks on theft and pilferage.\
Bar bending schedule can be used for reinforcement cutting, bending, and making a skeleton of a structural member before it can be placed at the required position. Other activities such as excavation, PCC, etc can proceed parallel with this activity. So, overall project activity management becomes easy and reduces the time of construction. It becomes helpful in preventing any damages due to construction time overrun.
It provides benchmarks for quantity and quality requirements for reinforcement and concrete works.
Bar bending schedule provides the steel quantity requirement much accurately and thus provides an option to optimize the design in case of cost overrun.
It becomes easy for site engineers to verify and approve the bar bending and cutting length during inspection before placement of concrete with the use of bar bending schedule and helps in better quality control.
It enables easy and fast preparation of bills of construction works for clients and contractors.
When mechanized bar cutting and bending is used, the cost of reinforced concrete work per unit reduces and helps in cost optimization of construction projects.