Guidance on Grade 500E Reinforcing Steel
The investigation highlighted the need to provide guidance to industry on the use of Grade 500E reinforcing steel. The Guidance has been issued in accordance with s 175 of the Building Act 2004.
The following guidance documents have been issued:
- Practice Advisory 1 Bend the bar but not the rules (December 2004, revised Dec 2005)
- Practice Advisory 7 Use with care, Grade 500E reinforcing steel in New Zealand (July 2005) (WITHDRAWN and replaced by Practice Advisory 11 (2015)
- Report on Grade 500E Steel Reinforcement [PDF 4.5 MB] was published in August 2005, posted on our website and notified through a Building Controls Update. You can view it on the MBIE Corporate website.
- Articles in our Codewords newsletter, now incorporated in this article (archived issues 13 and 33).
Bendometers
In association with the Cement and Concrete Association of New Zealand (CCANZ), we produced and distributed more than 6000 bendometers from March 2006. These are a set of plastic discs that allow bend diameters to be checked on site for compliance with NZS 3101 and 3109. While MBIE no longer supplies these, their manufacture and distribution has been picked up by the industry. Many of the reported Grade 500E 'failures' resulted from bars being bent to diameters less than those specified by NZS 3101 and 3109.
The bendometers are a simple device that were developed by the then Department of Building and Housing to promote the correct bending of reinforcement and an awareness of its importance.
Industry contribution
Following a series of seminars in September 2003, CCANZ issued an Information Bulletin IB79 Recommended Industry Practice on Bending and Re-bending of Reinforcing Barsin December 2004. The seminars and bulletin did much to inform the industry about Grade 500E reinforcing steel.
The Structural Engineering Society New Zealand (SESOC) has been active in the investigation and debate about Grade 500E reinforcing steel. Articles on Grade 500E have been published in its Journals of April 2001, April 2002, April 2004 and September 2005, and in a technical paper Grade 500E Reinforcing Steel in 2008.
We are pleased to acknowledge the cooperation we have received from many sections of the industry and are confident that the use of Grade 500E reinforcing steel has been significantly improved as a result of this investigation, debate and guidance.